A new study suggests scientists have moved closer to finding the best treatments for chronic hepatitis B, a viral infection affecting some 400 million people worldwide.

The new issue of the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a research work which found that longer-term treatment with the drug adefovir dipivoxil benefited patients with hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative chronic hepatitis B.

HBeAg-negative disease tends to represent a later phase in the course of infection and also tends to be more aggressive.

Chronic hepatitis B is an enormously complicated disease, one that strikes different people differently and which requires nuanced treatment approaches.

The disease is caused by a virus that attacks the liver and can cause lifelong infection, scarring of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure and death.

The virus can be spread from a mother to the fetus, as well as through sex and intravenous drug use.

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