Hepadnaviridae

http://www.medicalook.com/diseases_images/hepatitis-b.jpg

In this post, I would be talking about Hepadnaviruses. Their taxonomy, pathogenesis and their treatment or rather control. You can see from the picture below, that the liver is harden.

Hepadnaviridae includes one virus that is pathogenic to man. The Hepatitis B virus (HBV). As their names imply, all of the known hepadnaviruses are hepatotropic, infecting liver cells, and all can cause hepatitis in their known host. Hepatitis is a syndrome characterized by inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis B virus is dangerous because it attacks the liver, thus inhibiting the functions of this vital organ. The virus causes persistent infection, chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, and immune complex disease. Acute or chronic liver infection depends on the patients age. 90% of neonates and 50% of young children become chronic infected and only 5 to 10 percent of immune competent adults get infected with HBV develop chronic hepatitis B.

There are 3 widely-used drugs to treat Hepatitis B infection: interferon-alpha, lamivudine, and adefovir dipivoxil. Not every patient needs drug treatment, however. A combination of the three is most effective at managing symptoms, slowing viral replication, and stopping damage to the liver. Post 1987 babies are vaccinated against HBV. Avoid risky sexual behaviour or HBV as well as HIV will come after you J There are about 400 million people worldwide infected with HBV and 5-7 percent of Singaporeans are HBV positive.

Hepa = Liver; Dna = Deoxyribonucleic acid

http://www.vetmed.fuberlin.de/einrichtungen/institute/we12/images

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Case Report

This article is about a man with liver cirrhosis who had gain resistance to lamivudine therapy causing subacute liver failure.

A 31-year-old man with pre-existing compensated liver cirrhosis developed resistance to lamivudine therapy leading to subacute liver failure. After referral adefovir dipivoxil 10 mg daily was initiated within an early access protocol. Since initiating therapy with adefovir dipivoxil progression of the subacute liver failure was delayed accompanied by a rapid decrease of ALT and decline of HBV viral load. Even so, the clinical course was not reverted but showed slower deterioration. This enabled the patient to undergo living-related liver transplantation. Adefovir dipivoxil was well tolerated in the acute phase of the disease and did not cause nephrotoxicity or favour the development of hepatorenal syndrome.

To conclude, Adefovir dipivoxil resulted in a delay of hepatic decompensation and enabled liver transplantation as final treatment option for this patient. Earlier initiation might have prevented the need of liver transplantation. Thus, in patients with pre-existing liver cirrhosis an early switch to adefovir dipivoxil appears indicated after emergence of lamivudine resistance.

This video is about a chinese Hepatitis carrier facing discrimination by people. It also tells us that hepatitis does not spread by using a cutlery used by a HBV carrier before. It also interviews some people on their views when with a HBV carrier.