In a poster presentation at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) virtual conference, Zobair Younossi, MD, reported that patients with chronic viral hepatitis B (CHB) are often observed in practices worldwide to possess better patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and less-severe liver disease than patients with chronic viral hepatitis C (CHC).

Dr Younossi is chairman of the Department of Medicine at Inova Fairfax Medical Campus in Fairfax, Virginia, and a professor of Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Inova Campus.

“Chronic viral hepatitis B (CHB) and C (CHC) cause significant global burden. Our aim was to compare clinical presentation and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) of CHB and CHC patients enrolled from different regions of the world using Global Liver Registry (GLR),” Younossi and coauthors reported.

Data was collected by the Global Liver Registry (GLR), focusing on patients with CHB and CHC observed in hepatology practices across 16 countries: Australia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States.

Of the 4558 patients enrolled by GLR, 1493 of the patients had confirmed CHB, with a mean age of 48 years; 3065 patients had confirmed CHC with a mean age of 54 years. Among the clinical characteristics noted were that patients with CHB were more commonly male (56% vs 49% for patients with CHC), white (48% vs 29%), employed (57% vs 44%), and possessed a history of anxiety (27% vs 20%).

Conversely, when compared to patients with CHC, patients with CHB had less advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis, lower rates of diabetes and obesity, fewer cases of depression, and less abdominal pain.

According to the study, “In multivariate regression analysis, adjusted for clinico-demographic confounders, having CHB was found to be independently associated with higher scores in Physical and Functional well-being of FACIT-F and all common domains of chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ). Additional predictors of lower PRO scores in patients with viral hepatitis included female sex, white race, higher BMI, current smoking, the lack of regular exercise (≥30 min ≥3 times/week), history of anxiety, depression, fatigue, abdominal pain, and having advanced fibrosis.”

—Angelique Platas

Reference:

Younossi Z, Yu ML, Kassas ME, et al. Clinical presentation and patient-reported outcomes in patients with chronic viral hepatitis: data from the global liver registry. Presented at Digestive Disease Week, May 22, 2021. Virtual.