الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Background: Globally, it has been reported that nearly 257 million people suffer from chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV). In Egypt, HBV has been classified as a moderate endemic where 4% of the population presented with chronic HBV. Long term Lamivudine (LMV) monotherapy has been found to develop resistant strains of HBV where the polymerase gene specifically is mutated (i.e., YMDD as a primary mutation). Aim: This study aimed to determine the correlation between LMV therapy and development of resistance in chronic HBV patients and to investigate the genes responsible for LMV resistance. Methods: In the current study, 107 patients with chronic HBV were enrolled, 84 patients received LMV treatment while 23 patients were on conservative treatment. Furthermore, nested polymerase chain reaction was performed for amplification of YMDD region followed by sequencing of the amplified product to identify the mutated gene. Results: Regarding the LMV treated population (84 patients); 44 patients showed response to LMV treatment; however 40 patients showed no response. Only 8 cases (20%) of the latest population developed gene mutations while 32 (80%) of the patients showed no evidence of gene mutations. Conclusion: We concluded that, LMV as an antiviral therapy has a fair response rate in the studied patients. Unfortunately, the long duration treatment with LMV leads to development of LMV resistant mutations altering the efficacy of the drug.