Abstract
Sixteen male patients with HBeAg positive chronic HBV infection were treated with Ara-A (adenine arabinoside) at dosages of 600mg/day for 28 days and 56 days. Its therapeutic effect in the 6th months after cessation of treatment in those patients was evaluated basically by Merigan et al.
The DNA-P activity was reduced 24 hours later significantly below the pre-treatment level in 11(91.7%)of 12 (p<0.05) and 10 (62.5%) were converted to negative. After cessation of treatment, the DNA-P activity returned to the pre-treatment level in 9 (90%)of 10 patients who had converted to negative during treatment.
Types II and II-III were identified in 5 (33.3%) of 15, confirming the effectiveness of Ara-A therapy. These 5 cases were all CAH with a low DNA-P activity below 500cpm and its effectivieness rate in CAH was 45.5% (5 of 11 cases). Otherwise, 4 cases who were NSRH and CPH with a high DNA-P activity above 1, 000cpm were all Type III.
The above results indicated that Ara-A had an obvious effect in reducing the DNA-P activity, although a limited the therapeutic effect, and may be useful in the treatment of CAH patients with a low DNA-P activity and high transaminase levels.
