The origin of finches on Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island, central South Atlantic ocean.

The Nesospiza finches of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago and Rowettia goughensis from Gough Island, 380 km distant, are both derived from tanager-finches (Thraupidae) that colonized the islands by crossing more than 3000 km of ocean from South America. Sequences from two mitochondrial and four nuclear genes indicate that the Patagonian bridled finches Melanodera are the closest relatives of the South Atlantic finches. Melanodera typically was sister to Rowettia, although some genes linked it more closely to Nesospiza.

A review of the one-year incidence of resistance to lamivudine in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B : Lamivudine resistance.

Purpose: The development of antiviral resistance is a recognized challenge to successful treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB), but it has been difficult to establish an accurate estimate of its incidence due to a number of factors: (a) lack of an accepted definition of antiviral resistance; (b) lack of a standardized assay to assess resistance; and (c) lack of consensus on patient selection criteria for resistance testing. Lamivudine, an effective and well-established antiviral agent, has been reported to show one-year resistance rates in CHB ranging from 6% to 32%, but methodologies used to calculate these rates vary considerably. This article reviews the clinical, statistical, and laboratory methodologies of clinical studies reporting one-year rates of antiviral resistance to lamivudine in CHB.

A double-blind randomized trial of adefovir dipivoxil in Chinese subjects with HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B.

Four hundred and eighty Chinese subjects with hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) were enrolled in a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of adefovir dipivoxil (ADV) 10 mg once daily. There was a significant difference in reduction of serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA after 12 weeks between subjects who received ADV and those who received the placebo (3.4 and 0.