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| home : pages : what's new in medicine vol. 4 : cervical cancer & hpv infection ... : | |||||
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CERVICAL CANCER & HPV INFECTIONBritish and Dutch scientists have found a way to explain how the most common strain linked to cervical cancer, HPV 16, is able to invade the body's immune system. We already know that certain types of the sexually transmitted Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) are linked to more than 90% of cervical cancers.Manchester's Peterson Institute for Cancer Research and Free University of Amsterdam scientists studied 88 women with abnormal cervical smear cells and HPV 16 infection. They then monitored the women whose condition worsened and looked for Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) molecules, which work like an alarm to alert the immune system to the presence of the virus. The study was now down to 5 women who all had the same HLA tissue type. In four of them, there was an absence of the antigen in the abnormal tissue but not in the healthy tissue. The majority of women who overcome HPV infection have HLA present in their abnormal cells. The findings were published in Lancet of January 1998 and suggested that in some cases the HLA alarm bells failed to go off and the virus infected cells escaped detection by the immune system. This research could help in the design of cervical cancer vaccines, which boost the immune system's ability to recognize and fight HPV Because everyone has different types of HLA, it means that in the future it might be possible to design cancer vaccines to suit an individual's tissue type (as stated by Professor Gordon McVie, Director General of the Cancer Research Company). It might also have implications for the treatment of other sorts of cancer because one-third of all tumors, in particular prostate cancers, show altered HLA's. Vaccine against HPV infection may help decrease the incidence of Cervical Dysplasia and Carcinoma. It would be a major advance against this prevalent and often chronic infection. --> return to menu / back ... (click) --> return to top of the page (click) |
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