HPV Vaccine Reduces Oral Infections by 88%

The HPV vaccine effectively reduced the prevalence of oral infections in individuals who received at least 1 dose of the vaccine, according to the findings of a recent study.

The cross-sectional study included 2627 participants from 18 to 33 years of age who were involved in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2011 to 2014. Researchers compared oral HPV infection-prevalence in individuals who received at least 1 HPV vaccine for types 16, 18, 6, and 11, and unvaccinated individuals. In addition, researchers examined the percent reduction of infection-prevalence in vaccinated individuals and population-level effectiveness of the HPV vaccine.

From 2011-2014, 18.3% of participants included in the study reported receiving at least 1 HPV vaccine dose prior to 26 years of age, of whom 29.2% of women reported receiving the HPV vaccine and 6.9% of men reported receiving the vaccine.

Oral HPV infection prevalence associated with HPV types 16, 18, 6, and 11 was significantly lower in individuals who were vaccinated compared with unvaccinated individuals, which corresponded to an estimated 88.2% reduction in prevalence.

In comparisons between vaccinated vs unvaccinated men, oral HPV infection prevalence was significantly reduced (0% vs 2.13%, respectively), but the prevalence of HPV types that did not have vaccines was similar (3.98% vs 4.74%, respectively).

Overall, the population-level effectiveness of the HPV vaccination on the burden of oral infections for HPV types 16, 18, 6, and 11 was 17%, and population-level effectiveness was 25% in women and 6.9% in men.

“HPV vaccination substantially reduced vaccine-type oral HPV infection prevalence among young adults (ages 18-33 years) in the US population during 2011-2014,” the researchers concluded. “However, due to low vaccine uptake, population-level effectiveness was modest overall and particularly low in men.”

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Gillison ML, Broutian T, Graubard B, et al. Impact of prophylactic human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination on oral HPV infections among young adults in the U.S. Presented at: 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting; June 2-6, 2017; Chicago, IL. Abstract 6003.