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Authors and Disclosures

Dae Won Jun, Byung Ik Kim, Yong Kyun Cho, Hong Ju Kim, Young Oh Kwon, Soo Young Park, Sang Young Han, Yang Hyun Baek, Yong Jin Jung, Hwi Young Kim, Won Kim, Jeong Heo, Hyun Young Woo, Seong Gyu Wang, Kyu Sung Rim, Jong Young Choi, Si Hyun Bae, Young Sang Lee, Young Suck Lim, Jae Youn Cheong, Sung Won Cho, Byung Seok Lee, Seok Hyum Kim, Joo Hyun Sohn, Tae Yeob Kim, Yong Han Paik, Ja Kyung Kim, and Kwan Sik Lee.
Received Date : May 10, 2013
Revised Date : May 31, 2013
Accepted Date : June 3, 2013

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND / AIM

Carnitine and vitamin complex (Godex®) is widely used in patients with chronic liver disease who show elevated liver enzyme in South Korea. The purpose of this study is to identify the efficacy and safety of carnitine from entecavir combination therapy in Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) elevated Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB) patients.

METHODS

130 treatment-naive patients with CHB were enrolled from 13 sites. The patients were randomly selected to the entecavir and the complex of entecavir and carnitine. The primary endpoint of the study is ALT normalization level after 12 months.

RESULTS

Among the 130 patients, 119 patients completed the study treatment. The ALT normalization at 3 months was 58.9% for the monotherapy and 95.2% for the combination therapy (P<0.0001). ALT normalization rate at 12 months was 85.7% for the monotherapy and 100% for the combination group (P=0.0019). The rate of less than HBV DNA 300 copies/mL at 12 months was not statistically significant (P=0.5318) 75.9% for the monotherapy, 70.7% for the combination and it was.

CONCLUSIONS

ALT normalization rate was higher in carnitine complex combination group than entecavir group in CHB. Combination group was faster than entecavir mono-treatment group on ALT normalization rate. HBV DNA normalization rate and the serum HBV-DNA level were not changed by carnitine complex treatment. (Clin Mol Hepatol 2013;19:165-172).