Therapeutic HPV vaccine
Experimental papilloma drug has been tested on volunteers
American oncologists have announced the successful completion of clinical trials of a drug capable of destroying the most dangerous strains of the papilloma virus in infected cells of women's genitals. The results of these tests are presented in the journal Gynecological Oncology.
"In the past, our colleagues have already tried to rid women of oncogenic forms of papilloma, but this was only possible in some rare cases. That is why our successes are so encouraging – we have achieved a high frequency of cure, and it is quite simple to carry out therapy," said Diana Harper from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (in a press release Study: Therapy Completely Clears HPV in One–Third of Cervical Precancers - VM).
Papillomaviruses have long been one of the most common infectious agents in the human body. According to current UN statistics, approximately 60% of people on Earth are infected with one or more strains of this virus.
In some cases, its penetration into the body leads to the formation of warts and papillomas on the surface of the skin. If a person's immune system is unable to fight this virus, then its penetration into the genitals sometimes leads to the development of cancer of the uterus, vagina or penis.
There are several vaccines that protect a person from infection with the most dangerous forms of this virus, but none of them allows you to get rid of it in cases where papillomas are already present on the surface of the patient's skin. Therefore, scientists have been working for many years to create drugs that can destroy the virus inside infected cells.
Harper and her colleagues tested the work of one of these drugs, TS. It is a modified version of another virus, Vaccinia virus Ankara, a close relative of the causative agent of smallpox. The vaccine has a fairly large size and penetrates well into human cells, but it does not cause serious consequences.
Almost 15 years ago, molecular biologists learned to insert foreign segments belonging to other, more dangerous viruses into its DNA. When a "therapeutic" virus infects human cells, the immune system learns to recognize those areas that have been inserted into the vaccine genome, resulting in a powerful immune response.
Guided by this idea, scientists inserted three genes into the DNA of this virus that caused the human body to produce three types of proteins – modified forms of HPV 16 E6 iE7 proteins that do not exhibit oncogenic effects., as well as interleukin-2, a signaling molecule that attracts the attention of the immune system.
A few years ago, Harper and her colleagues began a large-scale test of his work on two hundred women suffering from so-called cervical dysplasia. This is what doctors call benign neoplasms, whose appearance is associated with infection with papillomaviruses. In some cases, they disappear without a trace, but sometimes they give rise to full-fledged cancerous tumors.
Scientists have tested whether the body of their wards will be able to get rid of such outgrowths if large doses of TS are injected into it. After monitoring the health of women for two years, Harper and her team found that this drug successfully coped with this task.
On average, every third woman with the most severe forms of dysplasia was able to get rid of both the virus and the outgrowths in the first six months after the introduction of the vaccine. The drug worked especially effectively against HPV16, one of the most oncogenic varieties of papilloma – TS quickly suppressed the infection in 40% of cases.
In the near future, scientists will check whether this drug acts in the same way on other types of neoplasms that occur under the action of HPV16 and its "cousins" in other organs of the body of women and men.
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