[Medpage] A novel treatment for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) using HPV vaccine could some day prove useful in patients who are poor surgical candidates, have multiple lesions, or who defer surgery, researchers reported.
A single case report of an elderly woman with multiple, inoperable cutaneous basaloid SCC, showed that systemic and direct intratumoral injection of 9-valent HPV vaccine resulted in complete regression of all cutaneous malignant tumors, according to Anna J. Nichols, MD, PhD, of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, and colleagues.
All tumors resolved 11 months after the first injection of vaccine, they reported in JAMA Dermatology.
No systemic adverse effects were reported, they added, and at the patient's last follow-up visit 24 months after the first intratumoral dose of the HPV vaccine, there was no clinical evidence of SCC recurrence.
"The marked regression of numerous SCCs after initiation of the intratumoral injections eliminated the need for additional treatment," the authors wrote. "Tumors not directly injected with the vaccine also regressed, possibly by local dispersion of the vaccine or its effects on immune-mediated mechanisms. These findings suggest that the 9-valent HPV vaccine can provide a therapeutic option for inoperable cutaneous SCCs, in addition to its approved use to prevent anogenital HPV infection."
The mechanisms for the vaccine's therapeutic efficacy in cutaneous malignant tumors are not yet clear, they acknowledged. Similarly, it is not known whether systemic use of the vaccine played a therapeutic role. |