What is the prognosis of liver cancer (or HCC) due to chronic HBV?
• Liver cancer, if found early, can be cured. Transplantation is preferable to resection. The success of transplanting cancer patients is just as good as those without cancer. Radio Frequency Ablation (RFA) slows down the liver cancer, but does not cure it. However, RFA can be useful while waiting for a liver transplant. • We need to find better treatments so that people don’t end up with HCC. Outside the U.S., people cannot get a liver transplant due to lack of money, access and resources. The goal is to make HBV treatments accessible to the world so that patients don’t get liver cancer. If you are treating a young patient who has never been on treatment, what antiviral would you use first? • Every doctor will give you a different answer depending on their experience and preference. • Would probably shy away from lamivudine. Might use a combination such as adefovir and lamivudine. • Lamivudine resistance predisposes you to entecavir resistance, so by starting with it, you might be exc
