HPV16 Antibodies Signal Even Better Oral Cancer Outcomes
Source: www.medscape.comAuthor: Neil Osterweil Another prognostic tool may be in the offing for clinicians to use in evaluating patients with oropharyngeal cancers, new research suggests. The presence in serum of three antibodies to human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) was predictive of better progression-free and overall survival in these patients, according to Kristina R. Dahlstrom, PhD, from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, and colleagues. Patients whose serum was positive for the presence of three specific antibodies to "early" (E) proteins involved in replication and growth of HPV16 had dramatically better rates of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) compared with patients whose serum was negative for the antibodies, they reported online June 15 in Clinical Cancer Research. Specifically, for those patients whose serum was positive for any E antibodies, 5-year estimated OS was 87.4%, compared with 42.2% for patients whose sereum was negative for all E antibodies (P < .001). The respective 5-year PFS rates were 82.9% and 46.1% (P < .001). "These results hint at a prognostic stratification of patients with HPV-related oropharynx cancer reflecting humoral immune response to HPV type 16 E proteins and thus may help in choosing immunotherapy approaches for such patients in future," said senior author Erich M. Sturgis, MD, MPH, a surgeon at MD Anderson, in comments to Medscape Medical News. Currently, the serology results are not strong enough to be used as clinical decision tools for choosing current therapies, she added. Their findings also suggest that vaccine-based immunotherapy targeted [...]