NCI starting large-scale HPV vaccine trials.(National Cancer Institute )(human papillomavirus)(Brief Article)

1902 MAR 27 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Lynn Yoffee, senior medical writer - Large-scale efficacy trials are being initiated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for a vaccine to protect against human papillomavirus (HPV).

Addressing the American Academy of Dermatology's 60th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Douglas R. Lowy, MD, laboratory chief of the Center for Cancer Research of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, said that the NCI is proceeding with the trials now because, as researchers reported earlier this year, immunization with a papillomavirus virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine composed of L1, a major structural viral protein, is safe and highly effective in humans.

Further details about the trials were not released but Lowy said that investigators would be attempting to target young women who are just starting college as participants.

Those earlier studies showed that the vaccine was successful in animals challenged with HPV 16 and a small trial in humans with HPV confirmed the findings. Additionally, three pharmaceutical companies (MedImmune, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck & Co., Inc.) have independently tried and obtained the same results, Lowy said.

HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. HPV causes genital warts and cervical cancer and creates an enormous medical burden worldwide in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer or precancerous lesions and the treatment of genital warts.

In the U.S. alone, HPV causes more than 80,000 annual cases of malignant cervical cancers, 15,800 of which are invasive and result in over 4800 fatalities each year. Studies have indicated that the prevalence of HPV infection in the U.S. may be as high as 40% in some populations, particularly in sexually active women under age 30.

In some areas where mass ...