Lamivudine is a potent nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor. Lamivudine has been used for treatment of chronic hepatitis B at a lower dose than for treatment of HIV. It improves theseroconversion of e-antigen positive hepatitis B and also improves histology staging of the liver. Long term use of lamivudine unfortunately leads to emergence of a resistant hepatitis B virus (YMDD) mutant. Despite this, lamivudine is still used widely as it is well tolerated.