vaccine – Page 12 – Oral Cancer News

Gardasil vaccine to be free for boys for protection against human papilloma virus

Source: Herald Sun IN a world first, Australian schoolboys will receive the Gardasil vaccine free from next year. Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek's announcement yesterday comes five years after it was first funded for girls. She said about 870,000 boys would receive Gardasil over the next four years under the national immunisation program, costing about $21 million. The vaccine, which protects against four strains of the human papilloma virus, will be funded for 12 and 13-year-old boys, but Year 9 students will also be included in a two-year catch-up program. HPV causes cervical cancer in women, as well as a range of other cancers affecting both sexes, including tumours of the head and neck. Ms Plibersek made the announcement at Brisbane's Diamantina Institute, where the vaccine was developed. She said the decision continued Australia's reputation as being a world pioneer in immunisation. "We were one of the first countries to introduce polio and measles vaccinations," the Minister said. "We're the first country to provide free HPV vaccinations for girls, and from next year we will be the first country to provide free HPV vaccinations for boys." Scientist Ian Frazer, who developed Gardasil, hailed the "important public health measure". "The papillomavirus is responsible for some of the cancers inside the mouth and throat along with cancers of the genital tract," Prof Frazer said from overseas. "This is a very safe and effective vaccine." Cancer Council Australia CEO Ian Olver said funding Gardasil for girls was already having positive impacts, decreasing the [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-07-12T08:55:51-07:00July, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Viral Marketing: What’s Stopping Men From Getting the HPV Vaccine

Source: GOOD Mobile By: Jake Blumgart on July 6, 2012 at 3:00AM PDT In early 2011, my doctor informed me that a vaccine to protect against the human papillomavirus—HPV—was now available for men. I was relieved, then frustrated—my doctor didn’t actually offer the principal vaccine, Gardasil, to her male patients. After a couple days of hunting around town, I finally found the vaccine at the Mazzoni Center, a LGBT health clinic in downtown Philly. I received all three shots, and joined the less than 1 percent of American men who are vaccinated against the most dangerous strains of the virus. While I was exceedingly grateful to the Mazzoni Center inoculating me, I knew of only one other male friend who’d received his shots. So since I got my shots, I’ve made a point of discussing my experience with any friend, acquaintance, or bemused bystander who will listen. And I’ve learned two things about young, straight men and HPV: We all know it exists, and not much else. When I posted about my vaccinations on Facebook and Twitter, the response was largely positive—but the dozen or so likes and comments mainly came from my female friends. When I brought up the issue with a few straight guys, they seemed confused about my decision to air the information in public. Embarrassed, I let the conversation drop. But a couple weeks later, I received a Facebook message from an acquaintance in another city, freaking out about his own HPV scare, and asking me whether [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-07-09T09:04:05-07:00July, 2012|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Cross-sectional study on the prevalence of HPV antibodies in the general population of the Czech Republic

Source: BMJ Correspondence to Dr Eva Hamsikova, Department of Experimental Virology, Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, U Nemocnice 1, 128 20 Praha 2, Czech Republic; [email protected] Contributors EH participated in the design and coordination of the study, evaluated results, performed statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript. VL prepared antigens for assessment of antibody presence. JS performed the immunoassays. RT participated in the design of the study and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Abstract Objectives The assessment of the prevalence of antibodies to human papillomaviruses (HPV) in the healthy population is essential for effective planning of HPV vaccine implementation into the preventive programmes for HPV-associated diseases and for the prospective monitoring of the impact of HPV vaccines in the Czech population. Methods The seropositivity for HPV-6, 11, 16, 18, 31 and 33 virus-like particles was determined in sera from 3150 healthy individuals (age range 6–76 years) by means of enzyme-linked immunoassay. Results The seroprevalences for HPV-6, 11, 16, 18, 31 and 33 were 23.8%, 15.2%, 14.5%, 9.9%, 16.4% and 9.6% in women and 18.4%, 13.7%, 6.5%, 5.4%, 6.1% and 4.3% in men. For both genders, except for HPV11, these rates were age dependent. The prevalence of antibodies to HPV-16 and/or 18 reached the maximum of 27.0% in women 30–39 years of age and of 14.4% in men 50–59 years of age. The highest proportion of individuals' seropositive for any of the vaccine types HPV-6/11/16/18 was in 30- to 39-year-old women (50.0%) and in ≥60-year-old men [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-06-11T11:09:53-07:00June, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Advaxis recruiting for HPV+ head and neck cancer trial

Source: www.cancertreatment.net Author: Ross Bonander Advaxis is announcing the enrollment of patients into the REALISTIC Phase I/II trial sponsored by Cancer Research UK to evaluate ADXS-HPV for the treatment of HPV-positive head and neck cancer. HPV has been linked to as many as seventy percent of all head and neck cancers. ADXS-HPV is a next-generation immunotherapy that acts as a therapeutic vaccine and is being tested in trials against HPV-associated diseases, including cervical cancers. Cancer Research UK assumes all patient costs. Advaxis seeks to recruit 45 patients. The REALISTIC trial is being carried out at the Aintree Hospital at the University of Liverpool, the Royal Marsden Hospital at the University of London, and the Cardiff Hospital at the University of Wales. Qualified patients will have already received treatment for head and neck cancer, either surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or a combination of treatments. Head and neck cancers account for roughly three percent of all cancers in the US, according to the American Cancer Society. They are more commonly diagnosed in men than women, and while they are traditionally linked to smoking and to alcohol consumption, HPV-related oropharyngeal cancers are on the rise among white males under 50 years of age. "We are pleased to be working with an internationally-renowned oncology group to further expand the ADXS-HPV clinical development program to another HPV-associated tumor type," said Advaxis Chairman & CEO Thomas A. Moore. "Through this collaboration, we hope that our proprietary technology will be able to offer a new treatment option to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-05-24T14:21:07-07:00May, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Oral sex may cause more oral cancer than smoking in men, researchers say

Source: www.bloomberg.com Author: Robert Langreth A virus spread by oral sex may cause more cases of throat cancer in men than smoking, a finding that spurred calls for a new large-scale test of a drug used against the infection. Researchers examined 271 throat-tumor samples collected over 20 years ending in 2004 and found that the percentage of oral cancer linked to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, surged to 72 percent from about 16 percent, according to a report released yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. By 2020, the virus-linked throat tumors -- which mostly affected men -- will become more common than HPV-caused cervical cancer, the report found. HPV is known for infecting genitals. The finding that it can spread to the throat and cause cancer may increase pressure on Merck & Co., the second-largest U.S. drugmaker, to conduct large-scale trials to see if its vaccine Gardasil, which wards off cervical cancer in women, also prevents HPV throat infections. “The burden of cancer caused by HPV is going to shift from women to men in this decade,” Maura Gillison, an oncologist at Ohio State University and study senior author, said in a telephone interview. “What we believe is happening is that the number of sexual partners and exposure to HPV has risen over that same time period.” Gillison said she worked with researchers at Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck several years ago to design a study in men. After Merck acquired Schering-Plough Corp. in 2009, though, the trial “was canceled,” [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-05-20T20:54:05-07:00May, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Studies underscore genetic complexity of head and neck squamous cell cancers

Source: Dentistry IQ By Maria Perno Goldie, RDH, MS While we should be screening patients for oral and pharyngeal cancer daily, April has been designated as the month when we highlight this disease, and increase awareness about its prevention and treatment. Powerful new technologies that pinpoint the connections between human genes and diseases have clarified the background of cancer, singling out changes in tumor DNA that force the development of certain types of malignancies. Several major biomedical centers have collaborated to study head and neck squamous cell cancer. Their large-scale analysis has revealed a surprising new set of mutations involved in this disease. The studies underscored the genetic complexity of head and neck squamous cell cancers. Two independent, multi-institution research teams identified a large number of genetic defects associated with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), the most common form of head and neck cancer. The researchers sequenced the entire protein-coding regions, or exomes, of the DNA in dozens of patient tissue samples.(1,2) Tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection are known risk factors for HNSCC, including cancers occuring in the mouth and throat. The 5-year survival rate for many types of HNSCC has improved little over the past 40 years. According to the authors, the degree of differentiation, or tumor cell grade, has never consistently been shown to be a clinical prognostic factor in HNSCC. They said it was surprising to find mutations in a series of genes that appear to contribute to differentiation. Both [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-15T12:57:26-07:00March, 2012|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

HPV exposure increases men’s risk of cancer

Source: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/ Author: Zen Vuong “We’re at the precipice of this epidemic,” said Dr. Ezra Cohen, who specializes in head and neck cancers. The culprit is sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus-16. Human papillomavirus-positive head and neck cancer cases have been rising about 3 percent every year for the last three decades, said Cohen of The University of Chicago Medicine, an institution that includes the University of Chicago Hospitals. HPV-16 infection is three times more likely in men than in women, he added. Cells of the upper respiratory system of both men and women are very similar to the surface of the cervix in women, said Dr. Kenneth Alexander, chief of infectious diseases at The University of Chicago Medicine. HPV is linked to cervical cancer as well. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 10,800 new cases of HPV-associated cervical cancer in the United States each year. This number is nearly 35 percent larger than the 7,100 cases of HPV-associated head and neck cancers found in the United States each year. Oral sex is “probably the most important risk factor” in contracting HPV-16-related head and neck cancer, which “will become more common than cervical cancer in this decade,” he added. Some 5,600 men are diagnosed with HPV-associated head and neck cancers each year, whereas only 1,500 women suffer the same fate, according to the CDC. HPV-16, one of more than 150 strains, is a sexually transmitted condition. More than 40 HPV types can be sexually transmitted, according to the National Cancer Institute. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-03-07T15:30:30-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Canadian provinces weighing HPV vaccination of boys

Source: www.cmaj.ca/ Author: Laura Eggertson Provinces weighing the merits of implementing the National Advisory Committee on Immunization's recommendation to offer human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to boys and men aged 9–26 are facing a tricky trade-off between benefits and costs. “I think the benefits are there, but the costs are high,” which is a crucial issue for publicly funded programs, says Dr. Monika Naus, medical director of immunization programs and vaccine-preventable diseases for the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization last month recommended extending the human papillomavirus vaccine to boys and men aged 9 to 26 “for the prevention of anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN) grades 1, 2, and 3, anal cancer, and anogenital warts”. The move followed on the heels of an October 2011 recommendation from United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel recommendation that HPV vaccine be given to boys aged 11–12 to ward off genital warts, anal cancer and “possibly” head and neck cancer. In deciding whether to proceed, the provinces should note that “the public health and economic burden of AGWs [anogenital warts] in Canada is considerable, particularly among men whose incidence rates and incidence rate ratios compared to females have been increasing in recent years,” the committee stated. The committee’s report also noted that the number of annual cases (and average annual incidence per 100 000) of penile cancer among men in Canada is 127.4 (1.0 per 100 000), while the number for cancer of the anus is [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-02-26T10:01:29-07:00February, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Connected to Oral Cancers Too

Source: Chicago Tribune It's common knowledge that HPV — or human papillomavirus — is linked with cervical cancer, thanks to the controversy over the vaccine. But far fewer people know that this same sexually transmitted viral strain is connected to oral cancers, according to a new study, recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. For years, clinicians thought these kinds of cancer — affecting the tongue and tonsil areas — were almost exclusively caused by tobacco use, since they mostly struck heavy smokers and drinkers. But according to Dr. Maura Gillison, an oncologist and researcher at Ohio State University, it's not cigarettes that are the culprit, but oral sex. The good news: Most people with oral HPV will never develop cancer. Dr. Ezra Cohen, a specialist in head, neck, thyroid and salivary gland cancers at the University of Chicago, helped explain what it all means: Q. In general, mouth cancers are increasing? A. Oropharynx cancer is on the rise dramatically. It's gone up 3 percent a year for the last three decades and will surpass all other sites for head and neck cancers. Q. And HPV-positive oral cancers? A. They will surpass cervical cancers within the next three years. It's only relatively recently that we've come to realize the scope of HPV-related cancers. Q. What have we learned from this study? A. Quite a lot, actually. It told us about prevalence — that about 7 percent of adults in the U.S. are infected with oral HPV... and [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-02-15T10:45:22-07:00February, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Oral Sex Cancer Virus More Common in Men Than Women, Study Finds

Source: Bloomberg.com About 10 percent of men and 3.6 percent of women are orally infected with human papillomavirus, which is acquired through oral sex and can cause cancer. There are two peaks in the age people are infected -- 30 to 34 and 60 to 64, according to the study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The virus is linked to throat cancer, and is becoming a more common cause of the disease as Americans quit smoking. The virus, called HPV, is the most-common sexually transmitted virus in the U.S., where half the population will be infected at some time in their lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is known to cause cervical, vulvar, vaginal, penile and anal cancer. The higher HPV infection rate in men explains why their head and neck cancer rates are greater, said Maura Gillison, a professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus. “This provides pretty strong evidence that the higher infection rate is the reason why,” said Gillison, the study’s lead author, in a telephone interview. “This is a jumping board for additional research.” Besides sex, other demographics associated with oral HPV infection include age, lifetime number of sex partners, and the number of cigarettes smoked each day. The research is the first population-based study to examine how many men and women were infected, Gillison said. Existing Vaccines Though Merck & Co.’s Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s Cervarix target genital HPV, it’s [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-01-26T10:10:18-07:00January, 2012|Oral Cancer News|