Ye Q, Kam LY, Hui Y, et al. - The findings revealed that in the US, half of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection patients with private insurance did not have a complete laboratory assessment. Antiviral therapy was not received by over one-third of treatment-eligible patients. The results showed that individuals who visited a GI/ID specialist had a higher chance of receiving adequate evaluation and treatment. There is a need for urgent intervention to distinguish and address the barriers to these care gaps.

• Researchers recruited a total of 12,608 eligible patients in the study analysis (mean age 45.7 years, 52.1% male, 54.6% Asian, 18.1% Caucasian, 10.5% African American).

• The data indicated that about half of the cohort (n=6,559, 52.3%) did not have a complete laboratory evaluation (defined as having HBeAg, HBV DNA, and ALT tests) and only 72.4% (n=9,129) had an “adequate” evaluation (at least HBV DNA and ALT) during the entire study period.

• Among those with an adequate evaluation, 11.2% were treatment eligible by AASLD criteria and 13.9% by EASL criteria; and of these, 60.4% of AASLD eligible patients and 54.3% of EASL eligible patients received treatment within 12 months from becoming eligible.