Management
Nearly everyone who develops acute hepatitis B (95%-99% of healthy adults) will get better by themselves, so doctors do not recommend any specific treatment. This means that your body's immune system is able to work extra hard to quickly destroy the hepatitis B virus from the liver before any serious problems begin. For very severe cases of acute hepatitis B, some experts recommend treatment with a drug called lamivudine.For people who progress to chronic hepatitis B, doctors can choose from five drugs which are interferon alpha, pegylated interferon, lamivudine, adefovir dipivoxil and entecavir. Sometimes doctors treat with just one drug by itself, but usually, treatment is a combination of two drugs, such as pegylated interferon and lamivudine. The goal of treatment is to get the levels of virus in the blood (specifically viral replication) to undetectable levels by blood tests.
Unfortunately, treatment is relatively expensive and is challenging. Furthermore, some people with chronic hepatitis B do not respond well to treatment at all. For these reasons, the best strategy is to prevent hepatitis B infection.
Prevention
Hepatitis B infection is easily prevented by immunization. Vaccination is both safe and relatively inexpensive and there are two vaccines available in the United States.Certain people are at increased risk for being infected with the hepatitis B virus and should get vaccinated as soon as possible. These are all health care workers, injection drug users, people in jails or prisons and people who have more than one sex partners. Because of the increased risk of developing chronic infection, all children under the age of 18 should also receive hepatitis B vaccine.
Source:
Fauci AS, Braunwald E, Kasper DL, Hauser SL, Long DL, Jameson JL, Loscalzo J. Harrison's Online. "Acute Viral Hepatitis". Harrison's Online
