Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 14, 2024; 30(18): 2402-2417
Published online May 14, 2024. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v30.i18.2402
Current perspectives of viral hepatitis
Daisuke Usuda, Yuki Kaneoka, Rikuo Ono, Masashi Kato, Yuto Sugawara, Runa Shimizu, Tomotari Inami, Eri Nakajima, Shiho Tsuge, Riki Sakurai, Kenji Kawai, Shun Matsubara, Risa Tanaka, Makoto Suzuki, Shintaro Shimozawa, Yuta Hotchi, Ippei Osugi, Risa Katou, Sakurako Ito, Kentaro Mishima, Akihiko Kondo, Keiko Mizuno, Hiroki Takami, Takayuki Komatsu, Tomohisa Nomura, Manabu Sugita
Daisuke Usuda, Yuki Kaneoka, Rikuo Ono, Masashi Kato, Yuto Sugawara, Runa Shimizu, Tomotari Inami, Eri Nakajima, Shiho Tsuge, Riki Sakurai, Kenji Kawai, Shun Matsubara, Risa Tanaka, Makoto Suzuki, Shintaro Shimozawa, Yuta Hotchi, Ippei Osugi, Risa Katou, Sakurako Ito, Kentaro Mishima, Akihiko Kondo, Keiko Mizuno, Hiroki Takami, Takayuki Komatsu, Tomohisa Nomura, Manabu Sugita, Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Juntendo University Nerima Hospital, Nerima 177-8521, Tokyo, Japan
Takayuki Komatsu, Department of Sports Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Juntendo University, Bunkyo 113-8421, Tokyo, Japan
Author contributions: Usuda D wrote the manuscript; Kaneoka Y, Ono R, Kato M, Sugawara Y, Shimizu R, Inami T, Nakajima E, Tsuge S, Sakurai R, Kawai K, Matsubara S, Tanaka R, Suzuki M, Shimozawa S, Hotchi Y, Osugi I, Katou R, Ito S, Mishima K, Kondo A, Mizuno K, Takami H, Komatsu T, Nomura T, and Sugita M proofread and revised the manuscript; and all authors approved the final version to be published.
Supported by the JSPS Kakenhi Grant, No. JP24K15491.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Daisuke Usuda, MD, MSc, PhD, Doctor, Senior Lecturer, Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Juntendo University Nerima Hospital, 3-1-10 Takanodai, Nerima 177-8521, Tokyo, Japan. d.usuda.qa@juntendo.ac.jp
Received: February 28, 2024
Revised: April 23, 2024
Accepted: April 25, 2024
Published online: May 14, 2024
Abstract

Viral hepatitis represents a major danger to public health, and is a globally leading cause of death. The five liver-specific viruses: Hepatitis A virus, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, hepatitis D virus, and hepatitis E virus, each have their own unique epidemiology, structural biology, transmission, endemic patterns, risk of liver complications, and response to antiviral therapies. There remain few options for treatment, in spite of the increasing prevalence of viral-hepatitis-caused liver disease. Furthermore, chronic viral hepatitis is a leading worldwide cause of both liver-related morbidity and mortality, even though effective treatments are available that could reduce or prevent most patients’ complications. In 2016, the World Health Organization released its plan to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by the year 2030, along with a discussion of current gaps and prospects for both regional and global eradication of viral hepatitis. Today, treatment is sufficiently able to prevent the disease from reaching advanced phases. However, future therapies must be extremely safe, and should ideally limit the period of treatment necessary. A better understanding of pathogenesis will prove beneficial in the development of potential treatment strategies targeting infections by viral hepatitis. This review aims to summarize the current state of knowledge on each type of viral hepatitis, together with major innovations.

Keywords: Hepatitis A virus, Hepatitis B virus, Hepatitis C virus, Hepatitis D virus, Hepatitis E virus, Current perspectives

Core Tip: Viral hepatitis represents a major danger to public health, and is a globally leading cause of death. In 2016, the World Health Organization released its plan to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, alongside a discussion of current gaps and prospects for regional and global eradication of viral hepatitis. Today, treatment is sufficiently able to prevent the disease from reaching advanced phases. Moreover, a better understanding of pathogenesis will prove beneficial in the development of potential treatment strategies targeting infections by viral hepatitis. This review aims to summarize current knowledge on each type of viral hepatitis, together with major innovations.