Treatment of special populations with chronic hepatitis B infection.

All therapeutic agents that are currently in use for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B have been administered to a large number of patients in clinical trials in order to be approved as efficacious and safe. Nevertheless, in these trials, many patients have been excluded either because they have decompensated cirrhosis, or they belong to groups with comorbidities that can seriously affect the underlying liver disease, or where the treatment for chronic hepatitis B virus infection can be contraindicated. Such groups of patients are those with hepatitis D virus, hepatitis C virus and HIV coinfections, patients who have undergone transplantation or are immunosuppressed due to chemotherapy or other treatment, patients with end-stage renal disease under dialysis, acute and fulminant hepatitis B and also, children and pregnant women. In this article, all of the aspects of treatment of these special categories are discussed, since for many of these patients, treatment is of a greater importance compared with the standard patient with chronic hepatitis B, and in real life they represent a great percentage of chronic hepatitis B virus infection patients.