Vaccine may head off genital cancer in women
Therapeutic shots can wipe out precancerous growths caused by HPV
By Nathan Seppa
A series of shots can knock out genital lesions in women infected with a dangerous strain of human papillomavirus, or HPV, a new study finds. Although the experimental vaccine wasn’t effective in everyone tested, most of the women showed benefits and many appear to have developed long-lasting immunity against this strain of HPV and the precancerous growths it can spawn.
Two other vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, have been approved to prevent HPV infection in girls and young women who have not yet been exposed to the virus. The new vaccine is different; it can successfully treat active HPV infection that has triggered the development of the precancerous growths, researchers report in the Nov. 5 New England Journal of Medicine.
“This is a wonderful demonstration that these lesions can go away with vaccination,” says cancer immunologist Olivera Finnof the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In the best-case scenario, these shots will deliver long-lasting protection, but only large-scale testing and extended follow-up will establish that, Finn says.
Researchers recruited 20 women who had such skin lesions affecting external genital tissue. The tissue abnormalities, caused by HPV-16, the most common cancer-causing strain of the virus, cause pain, itching and burning, says study coauthor Gemma Kenter, a gynecologist who worked on the study while at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Although the lesions can be removed with laser treatment or surgery, they commonly recur, says Kenter, now at VU University Amsterdam.