HPV 18 Strain Is Associated With Doubled Mortality Rate.(human papillomavirus, cervical cancer)

2001 APR 19 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A strain of human papillomavirus called HPV 18, which is found in up to 30% of women with cervical cancer, appears to be associated with a mortality rate that is nearly double that of other HPV-related cervical cancers, according to a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center study.

Results of the research, published March 29, 2001, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, confirm several previous, smaller studies that suggest HPV 18 may be an excellent molecular tumor marker for predicting the prognosis of women diagnosed with early-stage cervical cancer.

The U.S. National Cancer Institute-funded project, led by Stephen Schwartz, PhD, and colleagues, is the largest, most comprehensive and first population-based study to assess the viability of HPV 18 as a prognostic tumor marker for invasive cervical carcinoma.

"I think that the study potentially has very important clinical implications, as well as implications for new basic research," said Schwartz. "What is needed now is a trial to see if measuring the presence of HPV 18 in the tumors of cervical-cancer patients makes a difference in clinical outcome in terms of using this information to make treatment or monitoring decisions."

In other words, women with poorer prognosis, whose cervical tumors harbor HPV 18, perhaps could be treated more aggressively in the first place and monitored more frequently after initial treatment. The findings also could impact the development of HPV vaccines for both treatment and prevention.

"We don't know yet if such vaccines work, but if they do, there could be a trend toward patients getting their tumors tested to determine what strain of HPV is present, and then vaccinating them against that particular strain," said Schwartz, also an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine.