To best manage hepatitis B, the disease should be monitored with professional assistance. This monitoring means having regular check-ups with your professional healthcare team to assess your hepatitis B infection.1 Every 3–6 months, according to your doctor’s advice, you will have tests to check how much of the virus you have in your blood, how your liver is functioning and how well your body is fighting the virus.2 For an additional tool to help you monitor your disease, download the PATH B resource.
Monitoring is vital for everyone with hepatitis B, whether you are undergoing treatment or not. Because there is no cure for hepatitis B, it is likely that you will need to be monitored for the rest of your life. Regular testing will allow your doctors to see if there are any changes in the functions of your liver, or the levels of virus in your blood. This will help them decide when you should start treatment and what the best possible course of therapy will be.2
How often you are monitored will depend on individual factors such as:3
- how long you have had the infection
- how severely your liver has been affected
- how well you are
- family medical history
All these factors and some additional ones, like age and particular aspects of the disease, are taken into account in clinical guidelines that doctors follow when deciding on treatment.1
The term ‘monitoring’ is also used to describe the tests required to check that medications are working and to look out for unwanted effects. The need to monitor for possible side effects varies depending on which treatments are used. Other regular check-ups may also be required to check for possible treatment-related adverse events that regulation groups believe may be associated with using certain treatments.4