Preferences of Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B - A Discrete Choice Experiment on the Acceptability of Functional Cure

Overview

Journal Patient Prefer Adherence

Date 2020 Apr 8

PMID 32256052

Citations 4

Authors

Fraence Hardtstock

Urbano Sbarigia

Zeki Kocaata

Thomas Wilke

Shirley V Sylvester

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Current antiviral therapies for chronic hepatitis B (CHB) rarely achieve functional cure, thus often requiring lifelong therapy. A therapy achieving functional cure in a significant percentage of patients could change the treatment landscape substantially. However, the acceptability of functional cure by patients is unknown, especially if associated with additional treatment burden.

Methods: A Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) including patients with CHB was performed between 2018 and 2019 in Germany. Patient inclusion criteria were confirmed CHB; age of at least 18 years; no history of hepatocellular carcinoma; no HIV or HCV/HDV co-infection. The final DCE included the following attributes: route of administration (oral administration by tablets; subcutaneous injection + tablets; intramuscular electroporation + tablets), side effect frequency (0/1/3 days per month), functional cure (1%/30%/50% of patients), frequency of physician visits (monthly, half-yearly) and travel time to treating physician (15/45 min).

Results: The main analysis sample consisted of 108 patients with CHB (mean age: 49.1 years, female: 37.0%, average time since CHB diagnosis: 14.0 years, 52.8% with Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) chronic HBV infection). High efficacy was found to be the main driver of decisions for/against the presented treatment options (impacted 57% of patients' decisions), followed by therapy regimen (17%), safety profile (12%) and number of physician visits (11%). Latent class analysis revealed first insights into different decision patterns, with age, gender and previous side-effect experience affecting patients' decisions.

Conclusion: In comparison to all other treatment-related attributes such as therapy regimen or safety profile, patients with CHB showed a strong preference towards a scenario where a substantial number of patients benefit from sustained disease remission, which mimics functional cure.

Citing Articles

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Hui R, Mak L, Fung J, Seto W, Yuen M Hepatol Int. 2025; .

PMID: 39961977 DOI: 10.1007/s12072-025-10785-8.

Patient acceptability of, and attitudes towards, hepatitis B cure research - A scoping review and identification of knowledge gaps.

Mohtashemi N, Dube K, Thio C, Song S, Patel S, Sugarman J J Virus Erad. 2024; 9(4):100354.

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Patient Preferences and Their Influence on Chronic Hepatitis B-A Review.

Zhang L, Liu Y, Tian J Patient Prefer Adherence. 2023; 17:3119-3124.

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Meet-Test-Treat for HCV management: patients' and clinicians' preferences in hospital and drug addiction services in Italy.

Andreoni M, Coppola N, Craxi A, Fagiuoli S, Gardini I, Mangia A BMC Infect Dis. 2022; 22(1):3.

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