Figure 1.

Treatment and sampling schedule. Antiviral treatments were stopped at W48 for all chronic hepatitis B (CHB) HBeAg negative patients except for 7 and restarted when hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA level was >120 IU/ml in sera and this was confirmed by a second test 2 weeks later. Some patients were re-treated after the first positive viremia without waiting for the results of retesting according to the physician's decision. Dotted lines represent fluctuating periods of time. Blood samples were collected at W0, W18, W40, and W46 for immunological assessments.