Deciphering fatigue factor in chronic hepatitis B infection

ABSTRACT

Background: With success in treating hepatitis C disease, chronic hepatitis B infection will be given more attention here forward. Whereas prevention of late morbidity with chronic hepatitis B infection is an admirable goal, the benefit for treating chronic carriers who lack determinable advances in their liver disease remains a debate.

Purpose: Fatigue, as a symptom, is one of several clinical complications that may be useful to assess the treatment of relatively asymptomatic chronic carriers. This narrative review assesses the current status for assessment of fatigue in this context.

Methods: A literature review was conducted of citations intersecting fatigue and hepatitis B as found in PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL Plus, and the Cochrane Library.

Results: Fatigue measurement can be direct or indirect with the assistance of several survey instruments, but there is a lack of universal adoption of any one or more. Nevertheless, there appears to be a consensus that worse fatigue scores are associated with increased hepatitis B-associated morbidity. There is no clear consensus about which quality of life indicators will serve treatment studies best.

Conclusion: Studies of treatment that assess fatigue and other clinical symptoms as outcomes must be properly matched and controlled. The combination of clinical and/or biochemical measures should have uniformity and consensus among scientists.

KEYWORDS:

• Hepatitis B
• fatigue
• treatment
• morbidity
• chronic carrier

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nevio Cimolai

Dr. Nevio Cimolai is a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The University of British Columbia. He is a medical microbiologist and has served the medical and scientific community as a medical practitioner, infection specialist, researcher, teacher, and administrator. His interests are broad but focused on infections.