Guideline of prevention and treatment for chronic hepatitis B (2015 update)

Abstract

This guideline is established to standardize the prevention, diagnosis and antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis B (CHB). For other treatment regimens and methods involving CHB, please refer to relevant guidelines and consensuses. The Chinese Society of Hepatology, Chinese Medical Association (CMA) and the Society of Infectious Diseases, CMA organized relevant native experts to establish this Guideline of Prevention and Treatment for Chronic Hepatitis B (1st version) in 2005, and made the first revision in 2010. In the past 5 years, great progress has been made in the native and foreign fundamental and clinical research with respect to CHB, necessitating additional revision of this guideline. This guideline is intended to help clinicians make reasonable decisions in the diagnosis, prevention and antiviral therapy of CHB. However, it is not a compulsory standard and does not include or solve all problems in CHB diagnosis, treatment and management. Therefore, clinicians must develop comprehensive and reasonable diagnosis as well as treatment plan for individual patients according to his/ her own professional knowledge, clinical experience and available medical resources, based on a full understanding of best clinical evidence relating to this disease and careful consideration of the patient’s specific condition and intention. We will continue to update and improve this guideline according to relevant native and foreign developments. The overall evidence presented in this guideline is classified into A, B and C levels, and recommendation grades include grade 1 and grade 2 (Table 1, revised according to GRADE classification).