Chronic hepatitis B

Abstract

This guideline has been approved by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and represents the position of the Association. PreambleThese guidelines have been written to assist physicians and other health care providers in the recognition, diagnosis, and management of patients chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV).These recommendations provide a data-supported approach to patients with hepatitis B. They are based on the following: ( 1) formal review and analysis of published literature on the topic -Medline search up to February 2006 and meeting abstracts in 2003-2005; (2) American College of Physicians Manual for Assessing Health Practices and Designing Practice Guidelines 1 ; (3) guideline policies, including the AASLD Policy on the Development and Use of Practice Guidelines and the AGA Policy Statement on Guidelines 2 ; and (4) the experience of the authors in hepatitis B. In addition, the proceedings of the 2000 and 2006 National Institutes of Health conferences on the "Management of Hepatitis B", the EASL 2002 International Consensus Conference on Hepatitis B and the Asian-Pacific Consensus Statement on the Management of Chronic Hepatitis B: a 2005 Update, were considered in the development of these guidelines.[3][4][5][6] The recommen-dations suggest preferred approaches to the diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive aspects of care.They are intended to be flexible.Specific recommendations are based on relevant published information.In an attempt to characterize the quality of evidence supporting recommendations, the Practice Guidelines Committee of the AASLD requires a category to be assigned and reported with each recommendation (Table 1).These guidelines may be updated periodically as new information becomes available.