Scientists announce vaccine hope.

2003 OCT 1 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Vaccines could be used alongside conventional treatments to combat certain forms of cancer, scientists suggest.

A Cancer Research UK scientist and his team have found that a vaccine targeted against certain forms of the human papillomavirus (HPV) was able to shrink lesions in almost half of women with a precancerous disease of the vulva.

They published their study data in the September 15, 2003, issue of Cancer Research.

The team believes the results will help in the search for vaccines for vulval and cervical cancer, both strongly associated with HPV infection, although they cautioned that it is too early to know how effective this particular vaccine will be.

Scientists at Cancer Research UK's Paterson Institute, in collaboration with doctors at St. Mary's Hospital, tested out a vaccine called TA-HPV, which was developed by Xenova Research Ltd. and is a modified version of the smallpox vaccine. They gave the vaccine to 18 women with vulval intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN), a condition in which precancerous lesions appear on the lining of the vulva and are very difficult to treat.

Researchers not only monitored the effect of the vaccine on the size of women's lesions, but also conducted a series of tests to assess whether the vaccine was stimulating an immune response.

They found that 13 of the 18 women developed a specific immune reaction to HPV following vaccination. In 8 of the patients, the diameter of the lesions shrunk by at least 50%, and another 4 patients experienced significant symptom relief.