Ahmad Anouti, MD, is a pediatric resident at the University of Texas Southwestern in the Physician Scientist Training Program.

Simplifying, Expediting Biliary Atresia Diagnosis, with Ahmad Anouti, MD

Recent guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is helping facilitate the early identification of 

 in infants, providing pediatric primary care providers with a novel strategy to simplify and expedite the process.

Intended to be used between 2 and 4 weeks of life at the “By 1 month” well-child visit in the Bright Futures/AAP “Recommendations for Preventive Pediatric Health Care,” the strategy involves examining infants’ eye color, stool color, and prior laboratory results to determine whether measurement of a direct or conjugated bilirubin level is warranted.

Biliary atresia is estimated to impact 1 in 8,000 to 1 in 18,000 live births worldwide, with symptoms typically appearing between 2 and 6 weeks after birth. The trapped bile can quickly cause liver damage and cirrhosis, eventually leading to liver failure, but outcomes can be improved with early diagnosis and surgery.

“The key here is to catch it early and catch it fast,” Ahmad Anouti, MD, a pediatric resident at the University of Texas Southwestern in the Physician Scientist Training Program, explained to 

. “If we do, the success and the outcomes have been proven time and time again to be better."

Anouti emphasized the importance of the strategy provided by the recent AAP guidance, citing frequent overcomplication in medicine as a whole when it comes to diagnoses and testing. For biliary atresia, he noted the step-by-step guide provided by AAP can simplify the diagnostic process for any primary pediatrician, ideally expediting linkage to a hepatologist.

In addition to being a medical doctor, Anouti is also a patient advocate. Having been diagnosed with biliary atresia as a child and eventually requiring a liver transplant after receiving a late Kasai procedure when he was about 77 days old, Anouti told 

 he wishes the AAP guideline had existed when he needed it as a child.

“With a guideline like this and with an approach like this, the answers come quicker and the treatment comes quicker,” he explained. “As a patient and as a resident in training, it's really eye-opening to see how much these minutes or days or months impact the patient's life, decrease the anxiety, make the answers come quicker, and really make the patient feel like this is being taken seriously and not dragging on.”

Anouti went on to describe how he considers himself to be a patient before a doctor, and the unique perspective this equips him with during his research and clinical work.

“It's very humbling and very exciting to see guidelines like this come out, because it shows me how the field is pushing forward,” he said.

Editors’ note: Anouti has no relevant disclosures.

Brooks A. New Biliary Atresia Guidance Released by American Academy of Pediatrics. 

. February 21, 2025. Accessed March 4, 2025. 

https://www.hcplive.com/view/new-biliary-atresia-guidance-released-american-academy-pediatrics

Anouti discusses the new AAP biliary atresia guidance and what it means to him as a patient-advocate who had biliary atresia as an infant.

Ahmad Anouti, MD

Risks, Benefits of Current Food Allergy Therapies, with Aikaterini Anagnostou, MD, PhD

 therapies—oral immunotherapy for peanut allergy and omalizumab for single or multiple food allergies—each come with their own risks and benefits.

Aikaterini Anagnostou, MD, MSc, PhD, the director of the Food Immunology Program at Texas Children’s Hospital, presented the session, “Navigating the Landscape of Food Allergies,” at the 

2025 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology (AAAAI)

 annual meeting in San Diego on Friday, February 28. 

 spoke with Anagnostou about evaluating the best treatment options for food allergies, weighing their risks and benefits.

“The main benefit from both of these therapies is raising the threshold of reactivity in patients with food allergies, meaning that patients can tolerate a larger amount of food while on the therapy compared to baseline,” Anagnostou said. “This has also the benefit of protecting patients from allergic reactions, accidental exposures, as well as severe reactions such as anaphylaxis.”

Anagnostou considers several factors in determining treatment, including the food allergy diagnosis, the likelihood of outgrowing it, frequency and severity of accidental exposures and their impact on the patient’s quality of life, the nutritional burden, history of anaphylaxis, and the patient’s treatment goals.

“Goals and preferences from patients and families are very important,” Anagnostou said.

For instance, a patient might be reluctant to use epinephrine—or simply do not want to carry it around.

For patients with comorbidities such as uncontrolled asthma or allergic rhinitis, Anagnostou noted that while these are not contraindications for starting food allergy therapy, managing them beforehand may be beneficial.

Oral immunotherapy and omalizumab, although sharing the same benefits, have different risks. Risks associated with oral immunotherapy include adverse allergic reactions during therapy. Moreover, the most common risk associated with omalizumab includes site injection-related reactions.

Recently, there has been more of an emphasis on shared decision-making in the management of food allergies. Anagnostou talks with her patients about the risks and benefits of each treatment and listens to their therapy preferences and goals. Some patients may prefer protection from accidental exposures, and others may want to reduce the anaphylaxis risk.

“I work with my families; I listen to what they are aiming to achieve through undertaking a food allergy therapy, and we make a decision together on the one that best fits their preferences and values,” Anagnostou said.

Relevant disclosures for Anagnostou include Genetech USA, Inc, Genetech Inc, and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation.

Anagnostou A, Rachid R, Chinthrajah R, et al. Navigating the Landscape of Food Allergy Therapies. Presented at AAAAI 2025 in San Diego on February 28.

HCPLive spoke with Anagnostou at AAAAI on how to determine what food allergy treatment patients should undergo.

Aikaterini Anagnostou, MD, MSc, PhD

Dr April W. Armstrong comments on patient selection for oral systemic treatments for plaque psoriasis management.

Patient Selection for Plaque Psoriasis Oral Systemic Treatments

This is a video synopsis of a discussion involving April W. Armstrong, MD, MPH, Professor and Chief of Dermatology at UCLA, and Chair Emeritus of the Medical Board of the National Psoriasis Foundation. Dr. Armstrong specializes in psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.

Dr. Armstrong discusses patient selection criteria for oral systemic treatments, noting that patients who prefer oral medications and have moderate-to-severe psoriasis are good candidates. She highlights the efficacy and tolerability of deucravacitinib, particularly for patients with palmoplantar involvement, where oral medications may outperform biologics.

She acknowledges the efficacy of deucravacitinib even in patients who have previously failed biologic therapies, possibly due to its targeting of the IL-23 pathway. Dr. Armstrong suggests considering switching such patients to IL-23 medications, either orally via deucravacitinib or through IL-23 biologics.

Emphasizing the multitude of treatment options available, Dr. Armstrong highlights deucravacitinib as an oral therapy with efficacy similar to first-generation biologics and a consistent safety profile. She notes that patients now have access to oral therapies that offer significant efficacy, comparable to biologics, providing a valuable treatment option for those who prefer oral medications.

Video synopsis is AI-generated and reviewed by HCPLive® editorial staff.

April W. Armstrong, MD, MPH

HCPLive Five – Allergy Updates at AAAAI 2025

 2025 Academy of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology (AAAAI) 

annual meeting in San Diego to connect with colleagues, explore late-breaking data, and attend hundreds of sessions.

 Allergy Team reported live from San Diego, conducting dozens of interviews and covering late-breaking research. In this iteration of the HCPLive Five, the team highlighted standout video interviews, covering topics such as insect allergy testing, chronic rhinosinusitis, omalizumab for food allergies, oral immunotherapy with autoclaved peanuts, and the WAYPOINT phase 3 trial assessing tezepelumab for nasal polyp management.

When to Test for Insect Sting Allergies, with David Golden, MD

David Golden, MD, from Johns Hopkins University, discussed the pitfalls of over-testing for insect sting allergies. He emphasized that a positive test does not confirm an allergy, as many people with positive results experience no reaction to stings.

Testing should be reserved for patients with anaphylactic reactions, as unnecessary testing can lead to undue worry and even disqualify individuals from opportunities like military service. Unlike peanut allergies, insect allergy tests do not predict reaction severity, making it crucial for clinicians to avoid misinterpreting strong test results as indicators of severe allergy risk.

When an Allergist Should Refer Endoscopic Sinus Surgery for Chronic Rhinosinusitis, with Kent Lam, MD

Kent Lam, MD, from Eastern Virginia Medical School at Old Dominion University, discussed when allergists should refer patients with chronic rhinosinusitis for endoscopic sinus surgery; surgery is recommended when symptoms persist despite treatment with topical steroids, saline irrigation, or antibiotics.

The procedure aims to improve sinus drainage and ventilation rather than remove tissue. Lam emphasized setting patient expectations regarding risks such as bleeding, scarring, and symptom persistence.

Omalizumab Performs Better Than Oral Immunotherapy for Food Allergy, with Robert Wood, MD

Robert Wood, MD, from Johns Hopkins Medicine, discussed the OUtMATCH trial comparing omalizumab and oral immunotherapy (OIT) for food allergies. The study found omalizumab superior in the intent-to-treat analysis (36% vs 19%;

 = .031), but per-protocol analysis—excluding dropouts—showed similar effectiveness (

OIT had a high dropout rate due to side effects, while omalizumab was well tolerated. Wood emphasized the need for individualized treatment, as OIT may offer long-term immune changes, but omalizumab provides a safer alternative with fewer side effects.

Patients Tolerate Oral Immunotherapy Better with Autoclaved vs Blanched Peanuts, with Casey Cohen, PhD

A study found that peanut-allergic patients tolerated oral immunotherapy better with autoclaved peanuts than with blanched peanuts. Casey Cohen, PhD, from McGill University, explained that autoclaving—using high temperature and pressure—reduces peanut-specific immunoglobulin binding, resulting in fewer severe reactions.

In a double-blind trial of 10 participants, the median tolerated dose was significantly higher for autoclaved peanuts (300 mg vs. 9 mg). No participants required epinephrine for autoclaved peanuts, whereas all were for blanched peanuts.

Tezepelumab Lowers Nasal Polyp Severity in CRSwNP During Phase 3 WAYPOINT, with Joseph Han, MD

The phase 3 WAYPOINT trial demonstrated that tezepelumab significantly reduced nasal polyp severity in patients with severe chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP), lowering the need for surgery by 92%. Tezepelumab significantly improved nasal congestion, sense of smell, and overall symptom scores at 52 weeks.

Investigator Joseph Han, MD, from Eastern Virginia Medical School, highlighted the near elimination of surgery in the treatment group. These findings support tezepelumab as a promising treatment option for CRSwNP, reducing reliance on systemic steroids and surgical intervention.

GlaxoSmithKline, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals for Lam, Genentech USA for Wood, none for Cohen, and GlaxoSmithKline, Genzyme Corporation, Regeneron Healthcare Solutions, Medtronic, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Optinose, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Aerin Medical, and PFIZER for Han.

Counting down the most impactful news at major medical meetings, it’s the HCPLive Five! This episode focuses on 5 key allergy updates from the 2025 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI) annual meeting.


Casey Cohen, PhD

 Javed, the last couple of points I’d like to touch on before we close speak in part to the continued development of the space. There are a couple of therapies that you mentioned earlier that I’d like you to give a 30-second bullet on for each, which includes vericiguat and intravenous [IV] iron. In the landscape of therapies for our patients with heart failure with reduced EF [ejection fraction], where do these fit in? Do they fit in at this point? Where do you see them going in the future?

 Think about the journey of patients with heart failure. You have no heart failure, then you develop heart failure and you’re not on any therapy, so the risks are pretty high. Then you get started on the standard therapy and the risks come down—what we call residual risk—but it’s never back to not having heart failure. Then you start breaking through, you start developing worsening symptoms. Whatever therapy you were taking that kept you stable as an outpatient is not enough anymore. That is now an entity we call worsening heart failure.

We did the VICTORIA trial on vericiguat that had a positive result on the cardiovascular death and heart failure hospitalization primary end point. It was focused on people on standard therapy who developed worsening heart failure, either recent hospitalization or the need for outpatient IV diuretic. That therapy is now approved by the FDA for ejection fraction less than 45% and recent worsening heart failure because of improvement in cardiovascular death and heart failure hospitalization. Whether it should be given to people without worsening heart failure is something we are all questioning. Let’s see if we can generate some evidence.

I really like IV iron because this is a specific disease within heart failure that you’re treating. Iron deficiency should be in our minds dissociated from anemia. There are other causes of anemia, but iron deficiency, regardless of anemia, is associated with worse outcomes. Anemia reduces oxygen carrying capacity, but iron is also needed for ATP [adenosine triphosphate] generation in the mitochondria. You can have reduced energy production, regardless of anemia, as well. We had a lot of trials in the outpatient setting showing in the past that iron-deficient patients given IV iron improve quality of life and functional capacity. Now we have a 1-year outcomes trial called AFFIRM-AHF. When patients in the hospital setting with iron deficiency are given iron, you reduce the risk of rehospitalization in those patients. This was an outcomes trail, and not only a quality of life and functional capacity trial.

In whom would you suggest IV iron be considered? Can you give us a transferrin saturation number?

Yes. There is an issue of absolute iron deficiency or relative iron deficiency. If a patient has a transferrin saturation of less than 20%, that’s a good patient to get iron. But remember that oral iron therapy, unfortunately, does not get absorbed very well, so you have to give IV.

 Yes, I was going to actually ask, “Why don’t we just throw some iron sulfate into the medical program?” You just jumped ahead of that question. It’s a really important consideration that clinicians need to know, in part because patients with heart failure don’t absorb PO oral iron as well due to abnormalities of hepcidin.

I’m going to draw this to a conclusion and try to appeal to our viewers, which include a large number of community physicians, to remember that heart failure is a team sport. We need to work together in understanding how to identify these patients, how to initiate therapies, when to initiate therapies, and when to reach out for help. In the expert consensus document, I would ask you to have a look at 1 specific figure that focuses on recognizing heart failure, initiating the therapies, but then recognizing when patients are not responding and where you might need to kick it up a notch and refer to a heart failure specialist like Dr Butler.

There’s a simple acronym called I-NEED-HELP. Each letter refers to a different aspect of struggles in heart failure care that might help you recognize when to reach out to an advanced heart failure specialist. Not every patient with heart failure can be treated by a heart failure transplant specialist. The care of our patients most in need to reduce their risk for heart failure events is in your hands. The American College of Cardiology and the development of this expert consensus decision pathway document recognizes that. In addition to the document, there’s a smartphone application called TreatHF that summarizes all of the things that we just talked about in terms of the therapies, how to use them, when to use them, how to troubleshoot adverse effects, and other issues that come up in the course of the care of our patients with heart failure. It’s all in your hands, folks. We hope that the document is as useful to you as it is for us. Dr Butler and I both find it to be a really helpful piece of support for the care of our patients. 

I want to thank you all for watching HCPLive® Peers and Perspectives®. If you enjoyed the content, please subscribe to our e-newsletters to receive upcoming Peers and Perspectives® and other great content right in your inbox. Javed, thanks so much for spending time today.

James Januzzi, MD, and Javed Butler, MD, MPH, MBA, discuss emerging agents, vericiguat and intravenous (IV) iron, in the treatment landscape for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction and advice for community physicians managing patients with heart failure. 

Emerging Agents for Heart Failure Treatment 

James Januzzi, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Dhiren Patel, PharmD, CDCES, BC-ADM, BCACP:

 Jen, for you in terms of…obviously there’s the prescribing of it, but I think you’ve served an equally important role in educating other HCPs [health care professionals], especially pharmacists. And so how do you, A, address this with patients? But also more importantly, there is a ton of confusion. Because even within the prescription, like Dr Bhatt alluded, there’s ones that have had data and there’s the ones that don’t have data. And then you have maybe that pharmacist that doesn’t know where it’s not covered, and they say it’s an IL-6 [interleukin 6] on the left-hand side. Which you also don’t want. If you can maybe walk us through kind of the over the counters and even within the prescription ones, how do you sort it, how do you not only educate your patients but also pharmacists and other HCPs?

Jennifer Goldman, RPh, PharmD, CDCES, BC-ADM, FCCP:

 I’m glad you asked that because I was listening to the 3 other panelists and what they’re saying and what they’re talking about is evidence that when I think back to 30 years ago, and I’ve been practicing over 30 years and my colleagues have been practicing quite a long time as well, and we gave drugs based on biomarkers, we were giving the fabric acid derivatives to lower a biomarker, but based on clinical trial, specifically the REDUCE-IT trial, and Dr Bhatt, we now have evidence. We have actual evidence that if we use icosapent ethyl [Vascepa] we not just lower a biomarker, we actually decrease cardiovascular events and so forth. So we have evidence. You can't just use the evidence when you feel like it. If you know the evidence, you have to use that evidence. The other fish oils, the various prescription plus supplements that are over-the-counter have been studied. They have been studied. And yes, they may reduce a biomarker. The triglyceride number might go down, but that does not translate to an outcome that we care about. So it doesn’t end up translating to a decreased cardiovascular event. So I think that’s 1 first educational piece that needs to go out to health care providers, but also to patients and particularly to pharmacists who are in the community, who might be the kind of end stop or the last provider that somebody actually speaks to. I’ll have patients that will come in and they’re on over-the-counter fish oil, and I’ll say, “Why are you taking that?” And they’ll say, “I don’t know. My doctor told me to take it.” So having that conversation. The other conversation is to make sure that everyone is educated about that biomarker. The point you just asked me about, Dhiren, is pharmacists in general. Supplements, fish oil supplements have been studied. They are not regulated. You don’t know what is in them. There could, there are all kinds of impurities in these supplements. The supplements that have been studied have not been shown to improve anything. When I have patients on that and when I advise other pharmacists, no, they’re wasting their money. Don’t get it. They’re not helping themselves. And the same thing with the prescription availability. The ones…you have to follow the evidence. So Dr Bhatt has done that for us. And Dr Busch is participating. For pharmacists out there in the community and for primary care, it’s not OK to just say go to the wholesale store and buy a big 5000 pills of fish oil. It’s not the same. So you can’t use evidence when it’s convenient. It’s all the time.

Joyce Ross, MSN, RNC, CRNP, CS, FNLA, FPCNA:

 I just wanted to jump here and say that there’s 2 points that I wanted to add to what you’re saying, Jen, which is so true. The patients don’t realize what they’re getting when they’re getting something over the counter. So really going through that. But what is worrisome to me is that we understand that the oxidized element of the fish oil over the counter, we have oxidation of the LDL [low-density lipoprotein], which is part of the problem. But we also have an increase in the LDL cholesterol in many of those products. And that is critically important. Saying to a patient, I think we’re shooting ourself in the foot when we’re just taking something that we know may increase your LDL cholesterol when all this time we’ve been working to reduce it. So again, taking the terms, look in the name of the trial, REDUCE-IT tells us all those things that are useful for education, both for the health care provider and for the patient as well.

 Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think hopefully what you saw here is that triglycerides are pretty well-established body of evidence now associated with it, but there’s a little bit of navigation that Jen, you pointed out that we need to make sure they get on the right product. Because there’s been a fair number of trials that haven’t had the positive cardiovascular data. And I say at the end of the day, we want to do things [that] are moving the needle from a population health standpoint and not just treating numbers that numerically make us feel better and they look pretty in a chart. At the end of the day that’s what we’re all here to do. So that’s excellent.

What pharmacists and providers need to know to counsel patients on when discussing the use of prescription or over-the-counter fish oil supplement as treatment for dyslipidemia and hypertriglyceridemia.

Efficacy of Prescription Vs OTC Fish Oil Products  

Joyce Ross, MSN, RNC, CRNP, CS, FNLA, FPCNA

I think it’s very important when we consider a treatment option for a chronic inflammatory disease such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, or acne, etc…We deal with those a lot in dermatology, but in this case we are focusing on psoriasis to have long-term, not only safety, but also efficacy data. Because we do know that, unfortunately, sometimes patients that are very responsive originally to a drug, the first 6 months or a year, they lose their response to the same drug a year or 2 years later. Now, we really don’t know why that is. Is it because non-compliant patients stop using the drug? Is it because really the drug doesn’t work? But regardless, for one reason or another, it seems to happen. In conditions like this when we don’t have a cure, when people have to use a drug for long term, it’s important to know the long-term safety and efficacy.

And here, with topical roflumilast, I think we have that—not only we have that safety data that puts our minds at ease, unlike topical corticosteroids where we have a limited amount of time to use, we worry about the concerns, we worry that what if the patient is using it on their face, what if the patient is using it in their genital area, what if the patient didn’t tell me about genital psoriasis? It’s ironic. I do want to address genital psoriasis and intertriginous psoriasis since it’s relevant here when it comes to roflumilast, since they do have that in the label. Most of the time, genital psoriasis is quite underdiagnosed and we miss it because patients don’t tell, there is stigma attached to it, they think it might be a venereal disease that they don’t want to discuss with us. But it’s actually psoriasis, and then they use the steroid, and they use it in their genital area, and we don’t even know, sometimes. There were actually some very interesting surveys that showed that 42% of the patients used the steroids in the genital area without letting the doctor know. So, again, the safety of the topical here, roflumilast, becomes very important since there is no limitation or safety concern on the face, the genital area, or other intertriginous area.

A nonsteroidal topical such as roflumilast is going to be very welcome in our new armamentarium for psoriasis treatment. First of all, there’s a big unmet need for topical treatments for psoriasis in the nonsteroidal area. It can be a first-line but it can also be used in combination in our practice with systemic medications, or with other topicals. Sometimes we do need the topical steroids, you need to put that flare out as fast as you can. So, why not use a topical steroid in addition to a topical nonsteroidal? And then we can keep that patient on the topical nonsteroidal. But now, we do have really quite impressive efficacy with roflumilast that there may not be a reason to start the patient with a topical steroid. We may directly go to that topical nonsteroidal that we now have available. But I think the fact that the drug also has intertriginous efficacy history and data, and that is in the label, it makes it quite advantageous for us to start it with topical roflumilast.

In dermatology we do a lot of combination treatments. I say that the drugs are studied as monotherapy to get the drug approved. That’s how the drugs get approved, but when it comes in our hands in clinical treatment, we do use a lot of combinations. I don’t see why not to use it for a patient. For example, if you are using some systemic treatments or biologic, but they have a couple of resistant plaques, why not use an effective topical here such as roflumilast? So, I think the drug can be used as monotherapy, as first-line treatment, but also as a maintenance treatment, as well as a combination treatment with other systemics, or even with other topicals.

Leon Kircik, MD, shares his impressions of the long-term data of roflumilast, and where it fits into clinical practice.

Importance of Long-Term Data in Plaque Psoriasis

Leon Kircik, MD

Leslie Citrome, MD

Paul Kwo, MD, is a professor of medicine and director of hepatology at Stanford University.

Addressing Barriers to Hepatitis Vaccination, with Paul Kwo, MD

Chronic liver disease affects millions of people worldwide, increasing susceptibility to severe complications from viral infections like 

, both of which can accelerate liver damage and lead to subsequent liver failure or hepatocellular carcinoma.

In 2022, an estimated 254 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B infection, with 1.2 million new infections each year. Hepatitis B resulted in an estimated 1.1 million deaths, primarily from cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Although hepatitis A infection is most common in low- and middle-income countries with poor sanitary conditions and hygienic practices, in the US, hepatitis A outbreaks have been reported among persons experiencing homelessness. Unlike hepatitis B, hepatitis A does not cause chronic liver disease, but it can cause mild to severe symptoms and rarely fulminant hepatitis.

Because people with chronic liver disease are at an increased risk of hepatitis infection and related complications, vaccination for both hepatitis A and B are recommended.

 However, several barriers exist that prevent eligible individuals from getting vaccinated, starting with healthcare providers ordering the appropriate serologic tests and identifying patients who need vaccination. From there, the vaccine series itself can also serve as a barrier.

“For hepatitis B, where you have to give 0, 1 and six months for the 3 dose [vaccine], it’s highly effective, and if that’s what you have, wonderful. I don’t want to say it doesn’t work, but it’s a barrier,” Paul Kwo, MD, a professor of medicine and director of hepatology at Stanford University, told 

, describing the superior effectiveness of a 2-dose vaccine.

Similarly, Kwo notes that hepatitis A vaccination requires 2 doses spaced 6-12 months apart. While he acknowledges that even a single dose offers some protection, he says encouraging completion of the full series remains a priority for optimizing patient protection.

Kwo also calls attention to the role healthcare providers—including primary care physicians, hepatologists, and gastroenterologists—play in actively identifying and vaccinating eligible patients. However, vaccine access varies. While some clinics stock vaccines, others do not, requiring referrals to public health departments, pharmacies, or other providers.

“I think one of the most exciting things on the horizon is the incorporation of the hepatitis B vaccination strategies to improve functional cure,” Kwo said, citing novel approaches like antisense oligonucleotide therapies and preliminary data on experimental therapeutic vaccines being developed to stimulate T-cell activity against hepatitis B virus. “Over time, as the design of these therapeutic vaccines, the adjuvants, and the antigens are refined, I think that this may also turn out to be part of a strategy to achieve functional cure.”

Editors’ note: Kwo has no relevant disclosures.

World Health Organization. Hepatitis B. April 9, 2024. Accessed March 28, 2025. 

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-b

Word Health Organization. Hepatitis A. February 12, 2025. Accessed March 28, 2025. 

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-a

National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Vaccines and Liver Disease. October 2024. Accessed March 28, 2025. 

https://www.nfid.org/immunization/vaccines-and-liver-disease/

Kwo describes different barriers to hepatitis A and B vaccination for people with liver disease and looks ahead to future innovations and novel strategies.

Authors