Headlines Spring 2009: Taking a Shot at HPV-Related Cancers

Although it has long been known that both men and  women can transmit human papillomavirus, the clinical and research focus once centered almost entirely on HPV’s ability to cause cervical cancer—a disease to which men are obviously not susceptible. That thinking changed in 2000, when Johns Hopkins scientists first linked HPV to head and neck cancers.

Dr. Sara Pai hopes to increase the
number of men receiving HPV
vaccinations.

“We know now that men and women are equally susceptible to HPV-related head and neck tumors,” says otolaryngologist/head and neck surgeon Sara Pai. “And that gives validity to the idea that perhaps we shouldn’t be vaccinating just women, but also men.”

The HPV vaccine currently available to young women, Pai says, aims to prevent cervical cancer caused by the high-risk strains of the virus. However, there is currently no vaccine option for patients suffering from HPV-associated lesions or cancers. Now, however, she and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins have developed a vaccine for HPV-related head and neck cancers that they expect to send into a clinical trial this year.

Unlike the preventive HPV vaccine for cervical cancer, Pai’s vaccine would be available to women and men with HPV who are already in the throes of head and neck cancer. The vaccine, she says, works by killing cancer cells that chemotherapy or radiation sometimes misses. “With this,” Pai says, “we can help patients who have already undergone radiation or chemotherapy,” and potentially decrease their odds of a local recurrence. “The vaccine will provide a boost to the immune system, so that it can recognize and destroy those residual cells.”

HPV-related head and neck cancers tend to occur in the base of the tongue and tonsils, Pai says. HPV accounts for up to 70 percent of those cancers, which often go undetected until they spread to a lymph node in the neck. But, she continues, once detected, the tumors often prove highly treatable and patients have good odds of recovery. “These tumors tend to respond well to current chemo and radiation therapies,” she says. “The vaccine would serve as an adjunct to these treatments and potentially decrease the likelihood of a cancer recurrence.”

Pai’s HPV vaccine trial should open for enrollment this summer. To refer a patient, call 410-502-9825.