[Therapy of chronic hepatitis (author's transl)].

Chronic hepatitis may develop after acute B-hepatitis or acute non A-non B-hepatitis, as well as after toxic liver damage. Microscopic examination after biopsy allows to differentiate between chronic persistent (CPH) and chronic active (CAH) hepatitis. CPH needs not to be treated, but just to be controlled. Immunosuppressive therapy with steroids, eventually combined with azathioprine, is recommended nowadays in HBsAg-negative CAH. It has been shown, that survival rates are higher in patients, when this therapy is applied during the early stage of the disease, than in patients without therapy; the development of cirrhosis of the liver however does not seem to be influenced by this therapy. Immunosuppressive treatment of HBsAg-positive CAH is still controversial. Antiviral therapy (anti-HBs-antibodies, interferon, adenine-arabinoside) or therapy using immunostimulation (transfer-factor, levamisole, BCG) are also still in an experimental state.