Source: WLKY.com
Author: staff

Looking at Petri dishes and transferring chemical solutions may not look exciting, but if you understood what doctors Alfred Jenson and Shin-Je Ghim have discovered in doing just that, it could save your life.

Now, the same scientists have made another discovery concerning the virus, and it could potentially save nearly 50,000 lives a year.

“The reason it’s so exciting is because we developed the vaccine for the cervical cancer because 100 percent of cervical cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus,” said Jenson. “Now it looks like during the last year, up to 50 percent of head and neck cancers are caused by the human papillomavirus.”

So having a vaccine that’s 100 percent effective against the human papillomavirus means the same vaccine is going to be able to prevent both cervical cancer and head and neck cancer.

HPV is known to be transferred by sexual intercourse and through the birth canal. So how did it manifest in the head and neck? Doctors linked it to oral transmission.

“There has been a change in the cause of head and neck cancers since 1972, and it’s just been realized in the last couple of years,” said Jenson.

Cancer specialists realized there was a sharp rise, particularly in cancer of the tongue and tonsils. U of L’s research team at the cancer center, led by resident Payal Desai, looked at the last seven years of patients who had cancerous tissue in those areas.

Twenty-eight percent of the samples tested positive for the HPV virus, which doctors say was transmitted through the mouth.

“It’s almost impossible to think of it as being infected as well, the oral cavity, and head and neck area,” he said. “And it is!”

This discovery is boding well for men. Why? The HPV vaccine hasn’t been approved for men because while they may be carriers of the virus, they don’t develop lesions as women do and aren’t as critically affected.

“But now that we’re beginning to show that 50 percent of head and neck cancers, with a ratio of at least seven to eight men to three women, are caused by HPV, now men will benefit greatly in the future from a vaccine,” said Jenson.

They’ll be vaccinated from HPV to prevent passing it on to their female partners, plus they’ll be protected from at least 50 percent of head and neck cancers.

It’s double discovery these doctors wanted to happen in Louisville.

“We did it here in Louisville because incidents of cervical cancer here are 20 percent higher than it is in the rest of the nation,” Jenson said. “The incidents of head and neck cancer are 10 percent higher.”

The Brown Cancer team presented their HPV study to the American College of Physicians internal medicine in May.

The study was selected out of 3,000 as one of the top 10 most significant.

Earlier this week, the center announced it licensed their technology for the second generation HPV vaccine in light of its added benefits against other cancers.