Entecavir Monohydrate

Alcavir is indicated for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus infection in adults and pediatric patients 2 years of age and older with evidence of active viral replication and either evidence of persistent elevation in serum aminotransferases (ALT or AST) or histologically active disease.

Dosage & Administration

The recommended dose of Entecavir for chronic hepatitis B virus infection in nucleoside-treatment-naive adults and adolescents 16 years of age is 0.5 mg once daily. For Lamivudine-refractory or known Lamivudine or Telbivudine resistance mutations, the recommended dose of Entecavir is 1 mg once daily. For patients with decompensated liver disease (adult) the recommended dose of Entecavir is 1 mg once daily. Entecavir should be administered on an empty stomach (at least 2 hours after a meal or 2 hours before the next meal).
Missed Dose: If it is almost time for next dose, skip the missed dose and take the next dose at the proper time. Nobody should take a double dose to make up for the missed dose.

The most common adverse events are headache, fatigue, dizziness and nausea.

By competing with the natural substrate deoxyguanosine triphosphate, entecavir functionally inhibits all three activities of the HBV polymerase (reverse transcriptase, rt):
Base priming,
Reverse transcription of the negative strand from the pregenomic messenger RNA, and
Synthesis of the positive strand of HBV DNA. Upon activation by kinases, the drug can be incorporated into the DNA which has the ultimate effect of inhibiting the HBV polymerase activity.