Virus World

The first generation HPV vaccine cut cervical cancer rates among women by 87%, British researchers reported.  The study published Wednesday in the journal The Lancet estimates that by mid-2019, there were 450 fewer cases of cervical cancer and 17,200 fewer cases of pre-cancers than expected in the vaccinated population. Researchers at Kings College London and the British government looked at population-based cancer registry data in the UK between January 2006 and June 2019 for seven groups of women, comparing those who were vaccinated to those who were not. They were looking at data covering the Cervarix vaccine, which protects against two strains of cancer-causing human papillomavirus or HPV. Newer vaccines sold under the Gardasil brand protect against even more strains of cancer causing viruses.  Of the three groups that were vaccinated, each were vaccinated at different ages. One group was vaccinated at age 12-13, another at 14-16, and another at 16 -18. Those vaccinated at the earliest ages were the most protected, the team reported. Those who got the shot between the ages of 14 and 16 saw an 62% reduced rate, and rates were reduced by 24% among those vaccinated between 16 and 18. "This study provides the first direct evidence of the impact of the UK HPV vaccination campaign on cervical cancer incidence, showing a large reduction in cervical cancer rates in vaccinated cohorts," study co-author Dr. Kate Soldan from the UK Health Security Agency said.

More than 100,000 cases of cancer will be prevented under plans to give boys the HPV jab as well as girls, UK health officials have said. 

Giving boys the vaccine protects girls from the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is passed on through sexual contact. And it will also protect them from a range of other forms of the disease, including some cancers of the head and neck, and penile, anal and genital cancers. Scientists hope that cervical cancer could be eradicated within decades, because of the success of the jabs. Since the vaccine was introduced for teenage girls in 2008, cases of HPV have fallen by 86 per cent among the age groups vaccinated.

Professor Beate Kampmann, director of the vaccine centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "This decision is a triumph for gender equality in cancer prevention.

"It's pleasing to see the UK follow the example of other countries like Australia, where the vaccine has been implemented for girls since 2007 and for boys since 2013."

Estimates from the University of Warwick suggest the vaccine will prevent 64,138 cervical cancers and 49,649 non-cervical cancers in the UK by 2058.  This will include 3,433 cases of penile cancer and 21,395 cases of head and neck cancer, such as throat cancer, in men.

UK Health report available at:

 https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england 

Researchers report two cases of pediatric lung cancer that have resulted from the vaginal transmission of uterine cervical cancer cells from mother to infant, either during, or just prior to, birth. The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Maternal–fetal transfer of cancer cells is exceptionally rare – ~ 1 per 500,000 mothers with cancer, whereas ~ 1 in 1000 live births involve a mother with a diagnosis of cancer. Eighteen cases of maternal–fetal transfer have previously been reported – all of which are believed to have occurred via transplacental mother-to-fetus transmission. However, transmission via the birth canal during vaginal delivery is also theoretically possible. For example, if the mother has cervical cancer, transformed cells residing in the fluids within the birth canal could enter the lungs of the infant during delivery.

The discovery of the two cases (both male) was made during routine sequencing of paired samples of cancerous and normal tissue, which was part of a prospective clinical trial. The first boy received a diagnosis of lung cancer at 23-months and the second was diagnosed at six years of age. Both mothers were diagnosed with cervical cancer shortly after the birth of the children (within three months). The authors were able to confirm mother-to-infant transmission based on various findings. The tumors in both boys lacked the Y chromosome. Tumor cells from the infants also shared multiple somatic mutations and single nucleotide polymorphism alleles with the cervical tumor cells of each mother. In addition, the human papillomavirus (HPV) genome was detected in the boys’ tumor cells. This was a notable finding, as HPV infection is linked to cancer; Types 16 and 18 are responsible for ~ 70% of cervical cancers. Tumor growth in both cases was localized to the bronchi, the main airways leading from the trachea to the lungs, suggesting that the tumors arose from aspiration of tumor-contaminated fluids during vaginal delivery. In the publication, the authors note that next generation sequencing “may be a useful tool to diagnose cancer that is transmitted from mothers to infants and to understand the prevalence of this transmission.”

Original findings published in NEJM (Jan. 7, 2021):

https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2030391