Most men benefit from initial and catch-up cancer prevention vaccination

Source: www.precisionvaccinations.com Author: Don Ward Hackett The Lancet Infectious Disease published the results from an extensive cancer prevention phase 3 study on November 12, 2021, supporting quadrivalent HPV vaccination in men, including catch-up vaccinations. The Gardasil quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was shown to prevent infections and lesions related to HPV6, 11, 16, and 18 in men aged 16–26 years. The researchers assessed the incidences of external genital warts related to HPV6 or 11 and external genital lesions and anal dysplasia associated with HPV6, 11, 16, or 18, over ten years of follow-up. The 3-year Base Study was an international, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial done at 71 sites in 18 countries. The Vaccination Period for the Base Study encompassed Day 1 through Month 7, during which time participants received qHPV vaccination at Day 1, Month 2, and Month 6. Follow-up for the Base Study encompassed Month 7 through Month 36. And the 7-year, open-label, long-term follow-up extension study was done at 46 centers in 16 countries. Between August 2010 and April 2017, 1,803 participants were enrolled in the long-term follow-up study, of whom 936 (827 heterosexual men and 109 MSM) were included in the early vaccination group and 867 (739 heterosexual men and 128 MSM) were included in the catch-up vaccination group. In early vaccine group participants during long-term follow-up compared with the placebo group in the Base Study, the incidence per 10 000 person-years of external genital warts related to HPV6 or 11 was 0·0 (95% CI 0·0–8·7) versus 137·3 [...]

2021-11-16T08:57:09-07:00November, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

HPV vaccine leads to more than 80% drop in infections: What parents need to know

Source: Good Morning, America Date: April 2nd, 2021 Author: Kathleen Kindalen   A new study has shown the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine, and found a dramatic decline in human papillomavirus infections in both vaccinated and unvaccinated teen girls and young women in the United States. "This study shows that the vaccine works very well against a common virus, HPV," Dr. Hannah Rosenblum, lead author of the study and medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told "Good Morning America." "HPV can cause serious health problems later in life, including some cancers in both women and men," she said. "HPV vaccination is cancer prevention -- by vaccinating children at age 11 or 12, we can protect them from developing cancers later in life." HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States and can cause health problems like genital warts in addition to cancer, which are most commonly cervical cancer in women and throat cancer in men, according to the CDC. The HPV vaccine was first authorized in the U.S. for females in 2006, and for males in 2011. There has since been a more than 80% decline in HPV infections nationally, according to the CDC study. The newly-released data from the CDC shows an 88% decrease in HPV infections among 14 to 19-year-old females and an 81% decrease among 20 to 24-year-old females. There has also been a drop in unvaccinated females, according to Rosenblum, who warned that does not mean people [...]

2021-04-05T10:31:43-07:00April, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

How to encourage vaccination against HPV cancers? Drexel study suggests taking a cue from anti-vaxxers

Source: www.inquirer.com Author: Marie McCullough To persuade more people to get the cancer-preventing HPV vaccination, public health groups should emulate a tactic of the anti-vaccine movement, concludes a Drexel University study of Instagram posts. The researchers aren’t suggesting that vaccine proponents spread misinformation on social media, as vaccine foes do. But the study found that emotional, personal accounts with photos of youngsters — a staple of anti-vaccine content — get way more “likes” than the dispassionate, factual messages typical of pro-vaccine posts. “By studying what makes these messages so effective, we can improve fact-based, pro-vaccination messaging,” said senior author Philip M. Massey, a community health researcher at Drexel. The study, which analyzed 360 Instagram posts from April to August of last year, was conducted before Facebook — the owner of Instagram — announced this spring that it would curb anti-vaccine messages. But such content still abounds, because Facebook’s crackdown is limited to recommendations and ads. Before the crackdown, a majority of Facebook ads spreading vaccine misinformation were funded by just two groups, one led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s World Mercury Project, according to a study published this month in the journal Vaccine. Another study, in JAMA Pediatrics in September, found that 13 years after Merck’s Gardasil vaccine was hailed as a revolution in cancer prevention, most Americans still don’t know that HPV (human papillomavirus) is a family of sexually transmitted germs that can cause oral and genital cancers, and most doctors still aren’t promoting the shots. The immunization is [...]

2019-11-27T06:30:20-07:00November, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Despite only a 50% HPV vaccination rate in adolescents, cervical precancer incidence rates drop

Source: www.targetedonc.com Author: Tony Berberabe, MPH Although a vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV) is widely available, an average of 34,800 HPV-associated cancers attributable to the virus, including cervical, vaginal, vulva, penile, anal, and oropharynx were reported in the United States from 2012 through 2016, according to data published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.1 The estimated number of cancers attributable to HPV types targeted by the 9-valent HPV vaccine (9vHPV) is also rising. These recent increases are due in part to an aging and growing population and increases in oropharyngeal, anal, and vulvar cancers, lead author Virginia Senkomago, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist and senior service fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, said in an email. Although HPV vaccination is an important component of cancer prevention, only about 50% of adolescents have received the vaccine. Of cancer cases attributable to the HPV types targeted by the vaccine, 19,000 (59%) occurred in female patients and 13,100 (41%) occurred in male patients. But there is some good news. Senkomago said HPV infections and cervical precancers have dropped significantly since the vaccine was introduced. Infections with HPV types have dropped 86% among teenage girls. Among vaccinated women aged 20 to 24 years, the percentage of cervical precancers caused by the HPV types most often linked to cervical cancer dropped by 40%. The vaccination is recommended through age 26 for all individuals, especially for those who were not vaccinated when they were younger. The vaccine is not recommended [...]

2019-11-06T09:58:21-07:00November, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Prevalence of Oral HPV Infection Declines in Unvaccinated Individuals

Source: Infectious Disease Advisor Date: September 30th, 2019 Author: Zahra Masoud Oral human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence has decreased in unvaccinated men, possibly as a result of herd protection, but the incidence of such infection has remained unchanged in unvaccinated women from 2009 to 2016 in the United States, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Since 2011 for women and 2006 for men, prophylactic HPV vaccination for prevention of anogenital HPV infection has been recommended for routine use in the United States. Previous studies have demonstrated that this vaccine has high efficacy in reducing the prevalence of oral HPV infection. However, the vaccine is not indicated to prevent oral HPV infection or oropharyngeal cancers because there are few results from randomized trials. Further, there has been a lack of surveillance studies reporting on herd protection against oral HPV infection, which is defined as a form of indirect protection from infectious diseases that occurs when a large percentage of the population has become immune/vaccinated, thereby providing protection for individuals who are not immune/not vaccinated. Therefore, this study investigated evidence for herd protection against oral HPV infection in unvaccinated men and women in the United States using temporal comparisons of oral HPV prevalence for 4 vaccine types and 33 non-vaccine types. This study was conducted across 4 cycles (from 2009 to 2016) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using a cross-sectional, stratified, multistage probability sample of the civilian population in the United States. For the examination [...]

2019-10-01T16:15:25-07:00October, 2019|OCF In The News|

British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons praise HPV vaccination study

Source: www.nationalhealthexecutive.com Author: staff The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) has welcomed new study findings from the two-year Cancer Research study in Scotland that the HPV vaccination for boys may substantially reduce head and neck cancer. BAOMS had been involved in successfully lobbying for the extension to the HPV to boys last year in England and Northern Ireland. Life-threatening HPV-related cancers can develop during middle age, but boys had been excluded from the national HPV vaccination programme. Currently the cost of treating HPV-driven mouth and throat cancer to the NHS is approximately £30m a year. Since the UK-wide immunisation scheme for girls aged 12 and 13 was introduced in 2008, data shows a reduction of up to 90% of pre-cancerous cells in the smear tests among women aged 20. BAOMS Chair, Patrick Magennis, said: “Between 2010 and 2012 nearly 2,000 men had HPV-related head and neck cancer. Over half of these oropharyngeal cancers are caused by HPV, and in the last decade alone the incidence of these cancers has doubled in the UK population. “Current evidence suggests that vaccination of boys in their teenage years will prevent them from developing HPV-related cancers in middle age, so the introduction of male vaccination is timely.” He welcomed the publication of the new study, which found that, over two years, in the 235 male patients in Scotland with head and neck cancer, HPV was present in 60% of cases. The findings follow an earlier report, which suggested routine vaccination of [...]

Twitter lends insight to HPV-associated oral cancer knowledge

Source: www.oncnursingnews.com Author: Brielle Benyon The incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oral cancer has risen in recent years, and the virus has now surpassed tobacco and alcohol use as the leading cause of the disease. In fact, while the HPV vaccine is typically associated with preventing cervical cancer, there have been more cases of HPV-associated oral cancer than there have been cervical cancer.1 While the link between oral cancer and HPV may be well-known to healthcare professionals, researchers at Howard University recently took to Twitter to get a glimpse into the public’s knowledge about the topic. “By looking at the social media data, we wanted to know what people are hearing about oral cancer – especially HPV-caused oral cancer,” study co-author Jae Eun Chung, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Strategic, Legal & Management Communication at Howard University, said. “We wanted to see what the gaps are between the knowledge of the healthcare professionals and the public.” The researchers collected 3,229 unique tweets over the course of 40 weeks using search terms such as “HPV or papilloma” and “mouth or oral or throat or pharyngeal or oropharyngeal.” They then used a program called nVivo 12.0 to conduct a content analysis that looked at certain phrasing, terms, and themes that commonly appeared. More than half (54%; 1679 total) of the tweets had information about prevention, while 29% (910) were about the causes of oral cancer. Far fewer tweets were about treatment (5%; 141), diagnosis (3%; 97), symptoms (1%; 42), and [...]

The epidemic of throat cancer sweeping the industrialized world

Source: www.mercurynews.com Author: Dr. Bryan Fong Tonsils - Angina Pectoris Over the past three decades, a dramatic increase in a new form of throat cancer has been observed throughout the industrialized world. The good news is that it’s potentially preventable — if parents get their children vaccinated. The disease shows up primarily in men, typically between the ages of 45 and 70. Those who are affected often lead healthy lifestyles. They do not have extensive histories of smoking tobacco or consuming alcohol, which are risk factors for traditional throat cancers. The rate of this new cancer has been increasing 5 percent per year and today, it is more than three times as common as in the mid-1980s. If you think this scenario sounds like a slow-moving infectious medical drama (think Contagion or World War Z), you would be right. The source of this cancer is a virus, the human papillomavirus (HPV) — the same virus that causes most cervical cancer in women. It’s widely known that parents should get their girls vaccinated. Now, with the surge in oral HPV cancers, especially in men, parents should get their boys vaccinated too. Currently, vaccination against HPV is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control for children and young adults ages 9-26. The vaccination includes a series of two or three injections; the side effects are mild. Ideally, the vaccinations should be administered before someone becomes sexually active. That’s because HPV is spread via sexual activity. Risk of HPV infection and [...]

2019-02-15T08:18:22-07:00February, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Scientists Confirm There’s Nothing But Misinformation On Anti-Vax Sites

Source: Huffington Post, LIFE Author: Agata Blaszczak-Boxe Date: 11/04/18 Many websites that promote unscientific views about vaccinations use pseudoscience and misinformation to spread the idea that vaccines are dangerous, according to a new study. For example, of the nearly 500 anti-vaccination websites examined in the study, nearly two-thirds claimed that vaccines cause autism, the researchers found. However, multiple studies have shown that there is no link between vaccines and autism. About two-thirds of the websites used information that they represented as scientific evidence, but in fact was not, to support their claims that vaccines are dangerous, and about one-third used people's anecdotes to reinforce those claims, the scientists found. Some websites also cited actual peer-reviewed studies as their sources of information, but they misinterpreted and misrepresented the findings of these studies. "So the science itself was strong, but the way it was being interpreted was not very accurate," said study author Meghan Moran, an associate professor in Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School's Department of Health, Behavior and Society. "It was being distorted to support an anti-vaccine agenda." In the study, the researchers looked at websites with content about childhood vaccines. They used four search engines to find the sites — Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves — and searched for terms including "immunization dangers" and "vaccine danger" as well as other phrases. Their final sample of 480 anti-vaccination websites included a mix of personal websites, blogs, Facebook pages and health websites. The researchers examined the content of the websites, looking for [...]

2018-11-26T10:36:47-07:00November, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Oral treatment may not be far off for head and neck cancer patients

Source: app.secure.griffith.edu.au Author: staff, Griffith University A highly promising approach to treating HPV-driven head and neck cancer is on the way, and it could be in the shape of a simple oral medication. This is according to new breakthrough research led by Griffith University, which has conducted trials showing that the drug, Alisertib, tested in trials to treat other cancers such as lung and kidney, can also successfully destroy the cancer cells associated with head and neck cancer. Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the main culprit in head, neck and oral cancers. The virus is thought to be the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the world, and most people are infected with HPV at some time in their lives. The latest trials – which have taken place over the past three years at Griffith’s Gold Coast campus – have shown a particular enzyme inhibitor in the drug, has the ability to prevent proliferation of HPV cancer cells in advanced head and neck cancers. A 100 per cent success rate Led by Professor Nigel McMillan, program director from Griffith’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland, the trials have shown a 100 per cent success rate in the drug eradicating the cancerous tumours in animals. “Head and neck cancers can unfortunately be very difficult to treat, just by the very nature of where they are located in and around the throat, tongue and mouth,” says Professor McMillan. “This part of the body contains some delicate areas such as the vocal chords and [...]

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