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HealthDay News — Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination appears to confer a high degree of protection from oral HPV infections, according to a study scheduled for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, to be held from June 2 to 6 in Chicago.
Data from 2,627 Americans, aged 18 to 33, were analyzed to assess the effect of self-reported receipt of at least one dose of an HPV vaccine on oral HPV infection (vaccine types 16/18/6/11) prevalence.
The researchers found that the population-weighted prevalence of oral HPV16/18/6/11 infections was significantly lower in vaccinated versus unvaccinated individuals (0.11 versus 1.61%; P=0.008), which corresponded to an estimated 88.2% reduction in prevalence. For 33 non-vaccine HPV types, prevalence rates were similar (3.98 versus 4.74%; P=0.24).
“When we compared the prevalence in vaccinated men to non-vaccinated men, we didn’t detect any infections in vaccinated men. The data suggest that the vaccine may be reducing the prevalence of those infections by as high as 100%,” study author Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, a professor of thoracic/head and neck medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said in a center news release. “But, unfortunately, because of low uptake of the vaccine, the burden of infection had only been reduced by 17% overall, and only 7% in men.”
Gillison disclosed financial ties to several pharmaceutical companies.
