vaccine – Oral Cancer News

HPV vaccine: Some studies say one and done might be better

Source: www.cnn.com Author: Jen Christensen, CNN This week, at the World Health Organization’s 76th World Health Assembly, health leaders from nearly 100 countries will join with thousands of others who have signed off on a global initiative to eliminate cervical cancer. Globally, cervical cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer in women, according to WHO, but many cases are completely preventable with the human papillomavirus vaccine. HPV is a group of more than 200 related viruses. Many don’t cause any symptoms at all. Some strains cause warts, and some cause cancer. The HPV vaccine protects against the strains that cause most HPV-related cancers. “Vaccines are bringing the dream of eliminating cervical cancer within reach,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his remarks to the World Health Assembly on Monday. The vaccine is recommended for children because it works best before someone has been exposed to the virus. HPV is often spread through sexual contact, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that almost every sexually active person who is not vaccinated will get HPV at some point. The vaccine’s introduction to the US in 2006, along with more regular screening, has led to a notable drop in cervical cancer cases and deaths in the US, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Cervical cancer rates among the first American generation to get vaccinated have dropped significantly. Among women ages 20 to 24, cervical cancer incidence rates declined 65% from 2012 through 2019, according [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-05-23T06:42:32-07:00May, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

California bill would mandate HPV vaccine for incoming college students

Source: www.cancerhealth.com Author: Rachel Scheier and KFF Health News When she was a college freshman, Joslyn Chaiprasert-Paguio was told by a doctor she had a common sexually transmitted infection called the human papillomavirus but not to worry. Four years later, a few days before her wedding, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, which caused complications when she became pregnant. She had a hysterectomy eight years later, after the disease returned in 2021. The 38-year-old medical journal editor of Menifee in Riverside County, California, hadn’t been immunized as a teenager because there wasn’t yet a vaccine for HPV, which causes nearly all cervical cancers and a handful of other potentially lethal forms of the disease in men and women. Now, her 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, is scheduled to get her first shot this month. “This is the only vaccine that prevents cancer,” Chaiprasert-Paguio said. [Editor’s note: The hepatitis B vaccine prevents liver cancer.] A bill pending in the California legislature would require schools to notify parents that their kids are expected to be vaccinated for HPV before entering eighth grade, as part of a push to get more children inoculated against the cancer-causing strains of the virus, theoretically before they become sexually active. AB 659 stops short of mandating the vaccine for middle schoolers, as the bill originally proposed. Lawmakers stripped out that provision without any debate, reflecting the contentious nature of school vaccine mandates even in a state with some of the nation’s strictest immunization laws. “Now is a tough time [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-04-21T07:05:19-07:00April, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Personalised cancer vaccine trials produce ‘really hopeful’ results

Source: news.sky.com Author: Thomas Moore, Science correspondent @SkyNewsThomas A personalised cancer vaccine made from individual patients' own DNA has produced "really hopeful" early results. The ground-breaking jab, created using technology perfected in the COVID pandemic, is being given to patients after they complete conventional treatment for head and neck cancers. Patients have a high chance of the cancer returning. Preliminary data from a clinical trial being run at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre show that none of the first eight patients given the jab have relapsed, even after several months. But the cancer has returned in two of eight patients who weren't immunised. The numbers are far too small to draw firm statistical conclusions. But Professor Christian Ottensmeier, a consultant medical oncologist and director of clinical research at the centre, told Sky News he was "cautiously optimistic". "I am really hopeful, yes," he said. "I am quite excited about it. All the data are pointing in the right direction." A small clinical trial of the vaccine on patients with ovarian cancer in France and the US is also showing promising results How does the vaccine work? The jab, codenamed TG4050, is made by a French company called Transgene using similar technology that produced AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine. DNA from an individual patient's tumour is cut and pasted into a harmless virus. When the genetically modified virus is injected into the body, it trains the immune system to be on watch for cancer cells, hopefully destroying them at an early stage before there [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2022-07-06T06:56:39-07:00July, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

WVU Medicine Head and Neck Cancer Team works to increase tonsil cancer awareness

Source: wvumedicine.org Author: staff, WVU Medicine News Head and neck surgical oncologists at WVU Medicine, the WVU Cancer Institute, and across the country are seeing increased incidences of tonsil cancer. “The majority of tonsil cancers, nearly 70 percent, are caused by human papilloma virus (HPV),” Meghan Turner, M.D., head and neck surgeon in the WVU Medicine Department of Otolaryngology, said. “In the last 10 years, tonsil cancer caused by HPV has become more common than cervical cancer caused by the same virus.” In most cases of HPV infection, the body fights off the virus like it would the common cold. In other cases, the virus remains in the body, increasing the risk of both tonsil and cervical cancer. Unlike cervical cancer, there is no regular screening for tonsil cancer. Most commonly, tonsil cancer is first diagnosed as a nontender mass in the neck. “Another common presentation for tonsil cancer is actually recurrent or persistent tonsil pain in spite of treatment for a throat infection,” Dr. Turner said. “This happens between the ages of 50 and 60. It may seem like recurrent strep throat, but it is uncommon for people in that age range to develop recurrent strep throat. If you’re having pain that isn’t resolved after a course of antibiotics, you should ask your doctor if it could possibly be something like tonsil cancer.” It is also regularly discovered during routine dental visits, appearing as asymmetrical tonsils. Those who have had their tonsils removed by tonsillectomy are not immune to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2022-02-05T10:20:45-07:00February, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

The ‘big three’ causes of mouth cancer

Source: www.hippocraticpost.com Author: staff By knowing the causes of mouth cancer, we can take positive steps to reduce our own level of risk, says a leading health charity. The Oral Health Foundation is raising awareness about the causes of mouth cancer, following new research that shows far too many people remain unaware of the main risk factors. The number of people diagnosed with mouth cancer in the UK has doubled in the last 20 years, with tobacco, drinking alcohol to excess and the human papillomavirus, being the considered the most common causes. However, new data shows that awareness into the three big risk factors is as low as 15%. With more than half of all mouth cancer cases linked to lifestyle factors, the charity along with Denplan, part of Simplyhealth, are using November’s Mouth Cancer Action Month to shed light on the biggest risks factors associated with the disease. Tobacco Smoking tobacco increases your risk of developing mouth cancer by up to ten times. This includes smoking cigarettes, pipes or cigars. Around two-in-three mouth cancers are linked to smoking. Dr Nigel Carter, Chief Executive of the Oral Health Foundation says: “Despite the number of smokers continuing to fall, it remains the leading cause of mouth cancer. Our focus must be on providing smokers with the support and information they need in order to kick tobacco for good. It’s never too late to quit and by making this positive step, the health of your mouth and body will see both instant [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-12-22T13:06:29-07:00December, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

Achieving an 80% HPV vaccination rate could eliminate nearly 1 million cases of male oropharyngeal cancer this century

Source: medicalxpress.com Author: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston A nationwide effort to adequately vaccinate 8 in 10 adolescents against the human papillomavirus (HPV) could prevent 934,000 cases of virus-associated, male oropharyngeal cancer over this century, reported investigators at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston) School of Public Health in The Lancet Regional Health—Americas. At the start of each decade, the Healthy People program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services establishes goals to reduce the most significant preventable threats to health, which include an 80% target for the HPV vaccination program. However, in the U.S., just 54% of adolescents and only 21% of young adults were adequately vaccinated as of 2019. To gage the effect of accomplishing an 80% target on male oropharyngeal cancer, the most common cancer caused by HPV, UTHealth Houston researchers created a simulation model to project the development of this cancer over a lifetime and to measure the impact of the HPV vaccination. "Our study is the first to develop and validate a comprehensive mathematical modeling framework of the natural history of oral HPV infection and its progression to oropharyngeal cancer," said Ashish A. Deshmukh, Ph.D., MPH, the study's senior author and an associate professor in the Department of Management, Policy and Community Health and associate director of the Center for Health Services Research at UTHealth School of Public Health. "Achievement of the 80% goal by 2025 and maintaining it could lead to the prevention of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-12-16T08:47:19-07:00December, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

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 [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-11-16T08:57:09-07:00November, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

HB-200 vaccines show promised in HPV16+ cancers

Source: www.targetedonc.com Author: Sara Karlovitch In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Marshall Posner, MD, discusses the use of the HB-201 and HB-202 vaccines in patients with human papillomavirus 16- positive cancers. Adding pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to the HB-200 vaccines may help to improve efficacy in patients with human papillomavirus 16- positive (HPV16+) cancers, according to data from a phase 1 study. HPV16+ cancers are caused by the expression of E7 and E6 oncoproteins, which is a source of immunogenic neoantigens. A tumor-specific T-cell response is induced by replicating arenavirus vectors HB-201 and HB-202. The study (NCT04180215) assessed HB-201 monotherapy and HB-201 and HB-202 alternating 2-vector therapy intravenously with or without 1 intratumoral dose in HPV16+ cancers. An interim analysis looked at 38 patients with confirmed HPV16+ cancers. In total, 18 patients received HB-201 monotherapy, 9 received the monotherapy intravenously with or without 1 intratumoral dose and 11 patients received HB-201/HB-202 alternating therapy. In an interview with Targeted Oncology™, Marshall Posner, MD, a professor of medicine, hematology and medical oncology at Mount Sinai, discusses the use of the HB-201 and HB-202 vaccines in patients with HPV16+ cancers. TARGETED ONCOLOGY: Can you go over the safety, efficacy, and immunogenicity of arenavirus-based vectors HB-201 and HB-202 in patients with HPV16+ cancers? POSNER: This is a first in human phase 1 trial with expansion cohorts, to occur later, of 2 vaccines. One is a lympho-choriomeningitis virus-based arenavirus vaccine and the other is a pichinde virus-based vaccine, both of which express the E6 and E7 proteins, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-10-05T06:53:43-07:00October, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

New cancer treatments may be on the horizon – thanks to success in mRNA vaccine trial

Source: www.goodnewsnetwork.org Author: Andy Corbley A personalized, mRNA vaccine, given to patients with particular kinds of aggressive cancers could leverage the immune system of the patient to kill the cancer on its own, and in doing so usher in a new epoch of cancer treatment. Messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) vaccines were what sparked the COVID-19 vaccine drives, as Pfizer and Moderna adapted the technology to create an emergency treatment to train the body to fight off the viral spike protein. What most of us won’t know however, is that the mRNA vaccines were originally in development for aggressive cancer types. Molly Cassidy, a mother studying for the Arizona Bar exam, is living proof that while the approach isn’t a panacea, it can clear away some of the most dreadful and fast cancers we know of. After being diagnosed with head and neck cancer, she underwent surgery and chemotherapy. However it was only ten days after finishing chemo that she found a marble-like bump on her collarbone from the cancer’s swift return. Later examinations found it had spread from her ear all the way to her lungs, and she was told to get her affairs in order. Cassidy was told she was eligible to join a clinical trial at the University of Arizona, testing an mRNA vaccine personalized to the cancer mutations of the host. By 27 weeks, Cassidy had received nine vaccine doses paired with an immunotherapy drug, and her CT scans were clear: the cancer had left her body. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-09-07T05:46:03-07:00September, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

‘Vaccine for cancer’ trial begins in Liverpool and this is how it works

Source: www.liverpoolecho.co.uk Author: Jonathan Humphries, Public Interest Reporter The first human trials for a groundbreaking 'vaccine for cancer' have begun in Liverpool with the first patients recruited. A team of cancer researchers from Liverpool Head & Neck Centre, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, Liverpool University Hospitals and the University of Liverpool are trialling new vaccines that aim to harness a patients own immune system to fight cancer. Head and neck cancers, which include mouth, throat, tongue and sinus cancers, are particularly difficult to treat and carry a high risk of returning even after successful treatment. The first UK patient has now been recruited in Liverpool and vaccine production has begun at the Transgene laboratory in France. More patients will be recruited in coming months, with the aim of administering the first vaccine in a few months, when the usual treatment has been completed. The Transgene trial will involve around 30 people who have just completed treatment for advanced, but still operable, HPV-negative (not linked to human papilloma virus) squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). How does the vaccine work? Head and neck cancer can involve many different kinds of gene mutations resulting in the production of new proteins, called ‘neoantigens’, that vary widely between patients. The Transgene trial aims to produce individualised ‘therapeutic vaccines’, designed to trigger an immune response to the new antigen produced by a particular gene mutation linked to each patient’s own head and neck cancer. Chief Investigator for the UK trial, Professor Christian Ottensmeier, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-06-28T06:19:30-07:00June, 2021|Oral Cancer News|