HPV – Page 62 – Oral Cancer News

Winnipeg schools pick religion over HPV vaccine

Source: www.canada.com/vancouversun Author: Jen Skerritt, Winnipeg Free Press At least four Winnipeg private schools have opted not to vaccinate Grade 6 girls against a sexually transmitted infection linked to cervical cancer for "religious reasons." The decision comes weeks before Manitoba Health officials roll out the controversial Gardasil vaccine in schools across the province. Dr. Carol Kurbis, medical officer of health for the Winnipeg region, confirmed public health nurses will not attend at least four city private schools to vaccinate 11 and 12-year-old girls against human papillomavirus (HPV) next month. "We don't have any ability to force them into the program and those schools have actually been co-operative in still distributing information out to parents," Kurbis said. "There's four or five, and they're relatively small schools." The province's $10.8-million HPV vaccine program is set to launch in Winnipeg schools the first week of October. Researchers still have no idea when the immunity against HPV wears off and some critics believe mass promotion could lead some women to believe they're protected against other sexually transmitted infections, like the potentially deadly HIV. Some parent groups worry the vaccine sends the wrong message and may encourage preteen girls to engage in sexual activity. Robert Praznik, director of education for the Archdiocese of Winnipeg, said he can't understand why certain schools would opt out of the vaccination program. Praznik said the Archdiocese has directed the 14 local Catholic elementary schools to leave the question of whether to vaccinate preteen girls against HPV up to parents. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-20T08:24:06-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Vaccine controversy continues

Source: Reader's Digest (www.rd.com) Author: Julie Bain Between the relay races and table tennis triumphs last week, there was some news coverage about the HPV vaccine. A study came out last Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine that looked at the economic impact of vaccinating young girls and women from the types of HPV virus that can cause cervical cancer. Newsweek ran an informative Q and A with one of the study authors about who should get the vaccine and when. The New York Times did a big story, too, which I thought displayed a bit of bias in the disapproving tone of its headline: Researchers Question Wide Use of HPV Vaccines. I called Maura Gillison, MD, a researcher at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and one of the top experts on HPV, for her perspective. She said, “For those of us in the field, this study is not really new information. It is known that the HPV vaccine doesn’t have an impact on young women who have already been infected by the HPV types targeted by the vaccine (HPV6, 11, 16, and 18).” While it was possible to measure a girl’s previous exposure to HPV in the study lab, it’s not possible in a medical clinic, she says. That’s why it’s not as cost-effective to give the vaccine to women who are already sexually active. Still, she says, “only 4% of the 16- to 26-year-old women who were enrolled in the vaccine trials had evidence of exposure to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-08-25T18:29:15-07:00August, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Prevalence and significance of human papillomavirus in oral tongue cancer: the Mayo Clinic experience

Source: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Vol. 66, Issue 9, Pages 1875-1880 (September 2008) Authors: Xin-Hua Liang et al. Purpose Cigarette smoking and alcohol use have markedly decreased in the past 40 years. However, there has been an increasing trend in the incidence of tongue cancer, particularly in young patients without traditional risk factors. This study sought to examine the prevalence and significance of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and its clinical significance in patients with oral tongue cancer. Patients and Methods Fresh-frozen tissues from 51 patients with oral tongue cancer, treated with primary surgery from January 2004 to December 2006, were included in the study. The presence of HPV infection in tumor specimens was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction with HPV L1 consensus primers (GP 5+/GP 6+) and HPV-16-specific E6 primer pairs. Demographic and clinical data were collected to analyze patient outcomes. Results The overall frequency of HPV in oral tongue cancer in our study was 1.96% (1/51). Young patients below the age of 45 years accounted for 15.7% (8/51) of the total number of patients. Eighty-seven percent of the younger age group, including a single patient with an HPV-16-positive tumor, were alive and free from disease during the follow-up period. The overall survival of the study group was 81.4%. Conclusions Our data suggest that the incidence of HPV in oral tongue cancer is low and is unlikely to play a significant role in the etiology, pathogenesis, and clinical outcomes of oral tongue cancer. In addition, HPV is unlikely to constitute [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-08-21T20:39:40-07:00August, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Does Pretreatment Seropositivity to Human Papillomavirus Have Prognostic Significance for Head and Neck Cancers?

Source: Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 17, 2087-2096, August 1, 2008 Authors: Elaine M. Smith et al. Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a risk factor for head and neck cancers (HNC), yet HPV-associated tumors have better prognosis than HPV-negative tumors. Methods: We evaluated whether pretreatment presence of antibodies to HPV capsids [virus-like particles (VLP)] or to HPV-16 oncoproteins E6 and E7 was a predictor of HPV-positive HNC and clinical outcomes. Sera from 156 HNC patients were tested for antibodies to HPV-16–derived antigens using ELISA. HPV-16 in tumors was evaluated by PCR and DNA sequencing. Results: HPV-16 antibodies were found in 33% with HPV-16 VLP, 21% with HPV-16 E6, and 21% with E7. HPV-16 was detected in 26% of tumors. There was a strong correlation between detection of HPV-16 tumor DNA and antibodies to HPV-16 E6 or E7 ( = 0.7) but not to HPV-16 VLP ( = 0.4). Multivariate analyses showed significantly better disease-specific survival in seropositive HPV-16 VLP [hazard ratio (HR), 0.4; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.1-0.9], HPV-16 E6 (HR, 0.1; 95% CI, 0.02-0.5), and HPV-16 E7 (HR, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1-0.9) cases. Less disease recurrence occurred among those with antibodies to both E6 and E7 compared with those negative to both (P = 0.003). There was better disease-specific survival in patients who were E6 positive at baseline and remained positive at follow-up compared with individuals who were E6 negative at both time points (P = 0.03; = 0.9). Conclusions: The presence of antibodies to HPV-16 E6 and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-08-15T21:40:30-07:00August, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Presence of Human Papillomavirus Infection Has No Prognostic Value in Tongue Cancer Patients: Presented at AHNS

Source: Doctors Guide (www.docguide.com) Author: Arushi Sinha The presence of human papilloma virus (HPV) infection does not appear to have any prognostic effect in patients treated for base-of-tongue (BoT) cancer, according to research presented here at the American Head and Neck Society (AHNS) 7th International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer. Investigator Mary Reid, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York, presented the findings in a poster session on July 20. According to Dr. Reid, HPV has been shown to be associated with oral and laryngeal carcinomas. Therefore, the research team conducted the study to identify characteristics of patients diagnosed with BoT carcinomas and outcomes in patients with or without HPV infection. The researchers studied patient charts for 87 patients with BoT; the majority of patients comprised Caucasians (93%) and males (87%). The average age of the study cohort was 59 years. Forty-seven percent of the study population were smokers, 29% were former smokers, and 24% had never smoked at the time of diagnosis. In addition, 24% of patients reported heavy alcohol use. Of the group, 98% were diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma and 74% had advanced stage IV disease. The researchers identified a smaller subset of 30 patients for whom tissue samples were used to detect the presence of HPV, specifically the HPV 16 strain, using polymerase chain reaction techniques. Twenty of the 30 patients (66%) tested positive for HPV infection. There were similarities among tested and nontested patients with respect to alcohol consumption, race, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-07-23T19:06:18-07:00July, 2008|Oral Cancer News|