Australia antigen
The next insight regarding hepatitis B was a serendipitous one by Dr. Baruch Blumberg, a researcher at the NIH who did not set out to research hepatitis, but rather studied lipoprotein genetics. He travelled across the globe collecting blood samples, investigating the interplay between disease, environment, and genetics with the goal of designing  targeted interventions for at-risk people that could prevent them from getting sick. He noticed an unexpected interaction between the blood of a patient with hemophilia that had received multiple transfusions and a protein found in the blood of an indigenous Australian person. He named the protein the "Australia antigen" and made it the focus of his research. He found a higher prevalence of the protein in the blood of patients from developing countries, compared to those from developed ones, and noted associations of the antigen with other diseases like leukemia and Down Syndrome. Eventually, he came to the unifying conclusion that the Australia antigen was associated with viral hepatitis. In 1970, David Dane first isolated the hepatitis B virion at Londons Middlesex Hospital, and named the virion the 42-nm "Dane particle". Based on its association with the surface of the hepatitis B virus, the Australia antigen was renamed to "hepatitis B surface antigen" or HBsAg. Blumberg continued to study the antigen, and eventually developed the first hepatitis B vaccine using plasma rich in HBsAg, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1976.
Unfortunately, there are currently no drug treatments that decrease these patients risk of dying in the longer term, at 3–12 months and beyond.Weak evidence suggests milk thistle extracts may improve survival in alcoholic liver disease and improve certain liver tests (serum bilirubin and GGT) without causing side effects, but a firm recommendation cannot be made for or against milk thistle without further study. The modified Maddreys discriminant function may be used to evaluate the severity and prognosis in alcoholic hepatitis and evaluates the efficacy of using alcoholic hepatitis corticosteroid treatment. Autoimmune hepatitis
Autoimmune hepatitis is commonly treated by immunosuppressants such as the corticosteroids prednisone or prednisolone, the active version of prednisolone that does not require liver synthesis, either alone or in combination with azathioprine, and some have suggested the combination therapy is preferred to allow for lower doses of corticosteroids to reduce associated side effects, although the result of treatment efficacy is comparative.Treatment of autoimmune hepatitis consists of two phases; an initial and maintenance phase. The initial phase consists of higher doses of corticosteroids which are tapered down over a number of weeks to a lower dose. If used in combination, azathioprine is given during the initial phase as well. Once the initial phase has been completed, a maintenance phase that consists of lower dose corticosteroids, and in combination therapy, azathioprine until liver blood markers are normalized. Treatment results in 66-91% of patients achieving normal liver test values in two years, with the average being 22 months.