Core Tip: The 22nd Annual Meeting of the Asia Pacific Hepatology Society was held in Shanghai on February 29, 2012. The most interesting part of the meeting was the release of the updated version of the Asia-Pacific Guidelines for the Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis B. For the first time, the “Guidelines” clarified that strong, low-resistant drugs such as entecavir are the preferred nucleosides for patients with chronic hepatitis B. The “Guideline” for the first time specifies that strong, low-resistant drugs such as entecavir are the preferred nucleoside analogues for patients with chronic hepatitis B. Chronic hepatitis B is a chronic disease, and if the disease is not well controlled, it can progress further and cause serious diseases such as liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, decompensated cirrhosis, and even liver cancer. If you choose an antiviral drug at the beginning of the treatment of chronic hepatitis B that can strongly inhibit viral replication and has a low risk of drug resistance, you can largely control the disease, eliminate inflammation, and delay or control disease progression. The problem of drug resistance should not be ignored in the course of antiviral therapy for chronic hepatitis B. The development of drug resistance can make it difficult to treat patients who have already been treated. The occurrence of drug resistance can make the drugs that have been well used to inhibit viral replication and control viral load ineffective, and viral load may rise rapidly and disease progression continues. If a drug with a high resistance rate is chosen for initial treatment and then salvage measures are taken when resistance occurs, the efficacy of the drug will be greatly affected even if it is replaced with a strong and low resistance antiviral drug, and if not handled properly, it may even lead to multiple drug resistance. Long-term clinical studies have shown that the cumulative incidence of resistance in primary care patients taking drugs with low resistance rates such as Boludin (entecavir tablets) for 6 years of treatment is only 1.2 percent. ”In reality, many patients will choose non-potent, low resistance hepatitis B treatment drugs because of financial considerations, and they tend to consider only the short-term benefits and ignore the long-term rewards when choosing drugs and looking at drug costs,” said the executive member and academic secretary of the Infectious Diseases Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, and the affiliated medical school of Shanghai Jiaotong University Professor Xie Qing, director of the Department of Infection at Ruijin Hospital, told reporters that early use of the potent, low-resistant entecavir tablets in chronic hepatitis B patients and long-term adherence can save patients’ average daily treatment costs. Professor Xie also said that if any of her relatives or friends had hepatitis B, she would definitely recommend entecavir tablets. The results of the Long-Term Medical Cost Assessment of Oral Antiviral Therapy for Chronic Hepatitis B study presented at the meeting showed that the clinical benefits of entecavir are directly reflected in long-term medical savings, with the average daily medical costs of Chinese patients treated with Boludin (entecavir tablets) for chronic hepatitis B (based on a model of 5 years of drug use and 30 years of follow-up treatment assumptions) is $5.7 to $11.5 less than other oral nucleoside analogs already available in China. Long-term treatment of chronic hepatitis B with entecavir provides sustained and effective disease control and delays disease progression. In this study it was also shown that long-term treatment with entecavir delivered durable antiviral efficacy and higher economic value compared to short-term treatment. Long-term treatment with entecavir for 5 years compared to short-term treatment for 1 or 2 years can save patients more than $10 in average daily medical costs (based on 5 years of dosing and 30 years of follow-up treatment). It is reported that the concept of strong, low resistance drugs as the first choice of nucleoside (acid) drugs has become an international trend, and other international hepatitis B treatment guidelines such as the U.S. Hepatitis B Practice Guidelines and the European Clinical Practice Guidelines for Chronic Hepatitis B have emphasized the use of strong, low resistance drugs such as entecavir and tenofovir as first-line treatment options as early as 2009.