Vaccines for cervical cancer reviewed.

2004 FEB 11 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Researchers have reviewed the information on vaccines for cervical cancer in a recent issue of the Cancer Journal.

"Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are responsible for the nearly 450,000 cervical cancers that occur each year throughout the world. In the United States, the cancer rate is low (13,500 cases per year); nevertheless, HPVs affect millions of men and women annually in the form of genital warts and pre-invasive diseases of the cervix and anogenital region. The expense of cancer prevention via precancer and cancer management is high, yet most HPV infections resolve spontaneously as a result of a successful host immune response," investigators in the United States report.

"Recently, the discovery of methods to reproduce HPV virions (viral-like particles) in vitro has resulted in a successful clinical trial of preventing HPV infection and its associated precursor lesions," said Christopher P. Crum and Miguel N. Rivera at Harvard Medical School. "Although prevention is type-specific and duration of immunity is unknown, these results validate a vaccine strategy targeting prepubertal children that could prevent a significant proportion of genital warts and cervical precancers and cancers from occurring during reproductive life."

"Reversing advanced pre-invasive and invasive cervical neoplasia with immunotherapeutics is a more difficult challenge, inasmuch as little ...