Treatment of the chronic hepatitis B virus carrier state.

Chronic hepatitis B is no longer untreatable. With the advent of powerful antiviral agents such as adenine arabinoside, and, more importantly, with recombinant DNA technology and advanced culture systems able to produce large quantities of interferons, the prospects for treating patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection have changed completely. In the U.K., carriers not infected at birth are currently being treated with an approximately 50% chance of permanently inhibiting viral replication. In some of these, viral markers appear to be completely eliminated.