Baseline Characteristics and Treatment Patterns of the Patients Recruited to the China Registry of Hepatitis B

Background and Aims: Chronic hepatitis B virus(HBV)in-fection remains a major public health problem globally.Here,we describe the baseline characteristics and treatment pro-files of HBV-infected patients recruited to the China Registry of Hepatitis B.Methods: Inclusion criteria were patients with different stages of chronic HBV infection and complete key data.Exclusion criteria were patients with hepatocellular car-cinoma.The baseline clinical,laboratory and treatment pro-files were analyzed.Results: Finally,40,431 patients were included.The median age was 43 years,with 65.2%being men and 51.3%being positive for hepatitis B e antigen(HBeAg).The most common initial diagnosis was chronic hep-atitis B(81.0%),followed by cirrhosis(9.3%),inactive carrier of hepatitis B surface antigen(HBsAg)(6.7%),and immune tolerant phase of hepatitis B infection(3.0%).Among the 21,228 patients who were on treatment,88.0%,10.0%and 2.0%received nucleos(t)ide analogues(NAs),interferon or combination of NAs and interferon,respectively.The propor-tion of patients who received preferred NAs(entecavir or te-nofovir disoproxil fumarate)had increased from 13.5%in 2003 to 79.7%in 2016.Conclusions: We concluded that middle-aged men accounted for most of the patients with chronic hepatitis B in this cross-sectional study.About half of the patients were HBeAg-positive.NAs were the most com-monly used therapy,and use of the preferred NAs had steadily increased in the past decade.