Clinical follow UP result of chronic hepatitis b patients receiving tenofovir alafenamide treatment

Hepatitis B virus infection is a public health problem that maintains its seriousness with its morbidity and mortality. Although there are new developments in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB), which affects the lives of more than one million individuals every year, the permanent cure has not yet been reached. Tenofovir alafenamide (TAF), one of the currently accepted treatment regimens, is known as a potent and resistant antiviral. TAF is a tenofovir prodrug. Thanks to its pharmacokinetic mechanism, TAF reaches a high intrahepatic active drug concentration and reduces the systemic side effects of tenofovir. With the results of this retrospective study, which was planned to evaluate the real-life data of the effects of TAF, we aimed to contribute to the determination of the strategy for the follow-up of the patients. Patients with a diagnosis of chronic hepatitis B who were followed up in the Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology outpatient clinic of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Training and Research Hospital between 2018 and 2021 and were treated with TAF were screened. Complete blood count at the beginning and 12th month of TAF, HBV DNA levels, serological markers, liver function tests, urea, creatinine, eGFR (CKD-EPI), serum phosphorus, spot urine protein/creatinine values, DEXA measurement results were recorded. P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Of the 75 patients included in the study, 56 were TDF experienced, 13 were naive, 5 were entecavir experienced, and 1 was switched from other treatments to TAF. There was no significant difference between the onset of TAF and the 12th month in TDF experienced and naive groups in terms of liver function tests, urea, creatinine eGFR, serum phosphorus, and serum lipid levels (p>0.05). While there was a significant decrease in the protein/creatinine ratio in the spot urine in the TDF-experienced group (p=0.022), there was no significant change in this ratio in the naive group (p=0.477). In addition, DEXA measurement T scores decreased in the TDF-experienced group (p=0.008 for spine T; p<0.001 for hip T), while there was no significant change in the T-score in the naive group (p>0.05). v TAF is one of the safe oral antiviral drugs used in the treatment of HBV. The results of this retrospective study, which we conducted with a limited number of patients with the aim of reviewing the real-life data of the patients followed in our hospital, support that TAF is a safe agent. However, CHB treatment is a long-term therapy. For this reason, patients should be followed up periodically in terms of drug efficacy and side effects, and should be evaluated for updating the treatment when necessary. Keywords: Chronic hepatitis B, tenofovir alafenamide, side effect