User login
The vaccine, pNGVL4a-CRTE6E7L2, also showed signs of efficacy in patients living with HIV, reported Kimberly Lynn Levinson, MD, MPH, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.
“We demonstrated a 78% rate of clearance for both histologic regression and HPV16, with some clearance of other HPV types,” she said in an oral abstract presentation at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer, held in San Diego.
Further evaluation of the vaccine in vulvar, vaginal, and other tissue types is required, and evaluation of immune response at the local and systemic is ongoing, Dr. Levinson said.
In contrast to HPV16 prophylactic vaccines, which form an antibody-specific response to HPV, therapeutic vaccines elicit a cell-mediated immunity, primarily focusing on the virus’ E6 and E7 proteins.
There are currently only three Food and Drug Administration–approved therapeutic vaccines for cancer, but none are as yet approved for treatment of gynecologic malignancies.
According to the US National Institutes of Health, there are multiple therapeutic HPV vaccines in development using either vector-based, peptide and protein-based, or nucleic-acid based approaches, or whole cell (dendritic cell) approaches.
Current Study
Dr. Levinson noted that “DNA vaccines are both well tolerated and simple to produce, and the addition of calreticulin enhances immune response.”
The investigational vaccine is delivered via an electoporation device (TriGrid delivery system) that stimulates muscle at the injection site to produce an enhanced immune response.
In preclinical studies the device was associated with an enhanced immune response compared with standard intramuscular injection. The enhance immune effect persisted despite CD4 T cell depletion.
The investigators conducted a phase 1 dose-escalation study, administering the vaccine to two separate cohorts: women without HIV who had HPV16-positive cervical dysplasia (CIN 2/3) and women living with HIV with HPV16-positive cervical or vulvovaginal dysplasia (CIN 2/3, VIN 2/3 or VAIN 2/3).
The vaccine was delivered at weeks 0, 4, and 8, at doses of 0.3 mg, 1.0 mg, or 3.0 mg. At week 12, all patients underwent site-specific biopsy to verify non-progression.
At 6 months, the patients then underwent definitive treatment with either loop electro excision or vulvar/vaginal excision. At 12 months, all patients had standard evaluations with biopsies.
Dr. Levinson reported results for the first 14 women enrolled, 10 of whom were HIV-negative and 4 of whom were HIV-positive.
Of nine women in the HIV-negative arm who had completed 6-month visits and were evaluable, two had HPV16 clearance by 2-month follow-up, and seven had clearance at 6 months. Other HPV subtypes cleared in two of five patients at 3 months and in three of five at 6 months.
In addition, seven of nine patients in this arm had histologic regression at 6 months.
In the HIV-positive arm, the two patients with CIN had no HPV16 clearance at 3 months, but both had clearance at 16 months. The vaccine did not clear other HPV subtypes in these patients, however.
Of the two women in this arm who had VIN, one had HPV16 clearance and histologic regression at 6 months. The other patient had neither viral clearance nor histologic regression.
All participants tolerated each vaccine well. Adverse events were all grade 1 in severity and resolved within 4 weeks. The most common event was tenderness at the injection site. There were also three cases of mild headache, two cases of drowsiness, and one of nausea.
What’s Next?
In the question-and-answer session following the presentation, Ronald D. Alvarez, MD, MBA, chairman and clinical service chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, asked Dr. Levinson how the vaccine development will proceed.
“Obviously, you have more data to collect and analyze, but how are you going to move forward with what looks like equal efficacy between the 1 milligram and the 3 milligram doses? Are you just going to go with the maximum tolerated dose, or consider a lower dose if it shows equal efficacy in terms of histologic regression as well as HPV clearance?” he asked.
“This is something we’re very interested in, and we do plan for the dose-expansion phase to go with the higher dose,” Dr. Levinson replied. “We need to evaluate it further and we may need to do further randomization between the medium dose and the highest dose to determine if there are differences both with systemic and local responses.”
Robert DeBernardo, MD, section head of obstetrics and gynecology and the Women’s Health Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, asked whether Dr. Levinson and colleagues were considering evaluating the vaccine in transplant recipients, “because we have a lot of persistent HPV in that subgroup.”
Dr. Levinson said that one of the dose-expansion cohorts for further study is a population of patients scheduled for transplantation.
“What we’re interested in is looking at whether we can ‘cure’ HPV prior to transplantation, and we think that’s going to be the best way to show that this vaccine potentially eliminates the virus, because if we can eliminate the virus and then take a population that’s going to be immunodeficient, then that would show that there’s no reactivation of the virus,” she said.
The study is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Levinson, Dr. Alvarez, and Dr. DeBernardo had no conflicts of interest to report.
The vaccine, pNGVL4a-CRTE6E7L2, also showed signs of efficacy in patients living with HIV, reported Kimberly Lynn Levinson, MD, MPH, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.
“We demonstrated a 78% rate of clearance for both histologic regression and HPV16, with some clearance of other HPV types,” she said in an oral abstract presentation at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer, held in San Diego.
Further evaluation of the vaccine in vulvar, vaginal, and other tissue types is required, and evaluation of immune response at the local and systemic is ongoing, Dr. Levinson said.
In contrast to HPV16 prophylactic vaccines, which form an antibody-specific response to HPV, therapeutic vaccines elicit a cell-mediated immunity, primarily focusing on the virus’ E6 and E7 proteins.
There are currently only three Food and Drug Administration–approved therapeutic vaccines for cancer, but none are as yet approved for treatment of gynecologic malignancies.
According to the US National Institutes of Health, there are multiple therapeutic HPV vaccines in development using either vector-based, peptide and protein-based, or nucleic-acid based approaches, or whole cell (dendritic cell) approaches.
Current Study
Dr. Levinson noted that “DNA vaccines are both well tolerated and simple to produce, and the addition of calreticulin enhances immune response.”
The investigational vaccine is delivered via an electoporation device (TriGrid delivery system) that stimulates muscle at the injection site to produce an enhanced immune response.
In preclinical studies the device was associated with an enhanced immune response compared with standard intramuscular injection. The enhance immune effect persisted despite CD4 T cell depletion.
The investigators conducted a phase 1 dose-escalation study, administering the vaccine to two separate cohorts: women without HIV who had HPV16-positive cervical dysplasia (CIN 2/3) and women living with HIV with HPV16-positive cervical or vulvovaginal dysplasia (CIN 2/3, VIN 2/3 or VAIN 2/3).
The vaccine was delivered at weeks 0, 4, and 8, at doses of 0.3 mg, 1.0 mg, or 3.0 mg. At week 12, all patients underwent site-specific biopsy to verify non-progression.
At 6 months, the patients then underwent definitive treatment with either loop electro excision or vulvar/vaginal excision. At 12 months, all patients had standard evaluations with biopsies.
Dr. Levinson reported results for the first 14 women enrolled, 10 of whom were HIV-negative and 4 of whom were HIV-positive.
Of nine women in the HIV-negative arm who had completed 6-month visits and were evaluable, two had HPV16 clearance by 2-month follow-up, and seven had clearance at 6 months. Other HPV subtypes cleared in two of five patients at 3 months and in three of five at 6 months.
In addition, seven of nine patients in this arm had histologic regression at 6 months.
In the HIV-positive arm, the two patients with CIN had no HPV16 clearance at 3 months, but both had clearance at 16 months. The vaccine did not clear other HPV subtypes in these patients, however.
Of the two women in this arm who had VIN, one had HPV16 clearance and histologic regression at 6 months. The other patient had neither viral clearance nor histologic regression.
All participants tolerated each vaccine well. Adverse events were all grade 1 in severity and resolved within 4 weeks. The most common event was tenderness at the injection site. There were also three cases of mild headache, two cases of drowsiness, and one of nausea.
What’s Next?
In the question-and-answer session following the presentation, Ronald D. Alvarez, MD, MBA, chairman and clinical service chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, asked Dr. Levinson how the vaccine development will proceed.
“Obviously, you have more data to collect and analyze, but how are you going to move forward with what looks like equal efficacy between the 1 milligram and the 3 milligram doses? Are you just going to go with the maximum tolerated dose, or consider a lower dose if it shows equal efficacy in terms of histologic regression as well as HPV clearance?” he asked.
“This is something we’re very interested in, and we do plan for the dose-expansion phase to go with the higher dose,” Dr. Levinson replied. “We need to evaluate it further and we may need to do further randomization between the medium dose and the highest dose to determine if there are differences both with systemic and local responses.”
Robert DeBernardo, MD, section head of obstetrics and gynecology and the Women’s Health Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, asked whether Dr. Levinson and colleagues were considering evaluating the vaccine in transplant recipients, “because we have a lot of persistent HPV in that subgroup.”
Dr. Levinson said that one of the dose-expansion cohorts for further study is a population of patients scheduled for transplantation.
“What we’re interested in is looking at whether we can ‘cure’ HPV prior to transplantation, and we think that’s going to be the best way to show that this vaccine potentially eliminates the virus, because if we can eliminate the virus and then take a population that’s going to be immunodeficient, then that would show that there’s no reactivation of the virus,” she said.
The study is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Levinson, Dr. Alvarez, and Dr. DeBernardo had no conflicts of interest to report.
The vaccine, pNGVL4a-CRTE6E7L2, also showed signs of efficacy in patients living with HIV, reported Kimberly Lynn Levinson, MD, MPH, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.
“We demonstrated a 78% rate of clearance for both histologic regression and HPV16, with some clearance of other HPV types,” she said in an oral abstract presentation at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer, held in San Diego.
Further evaluation of the vaccine in vulvar, vaginal, and other tissue types is required, and evaluation of immune response at the local and systemic is ongoing, Dr. Levinson said.
In contrast to HPV16 prophylactic vaccines, which form an antibody-specific response to HPV, therapeutic vaccines elicit a cell-mediated immunity, primarily focusing on the virus’ E6 and E7 proteins.
There are currently only three Food and Drug Administration–approved therapeutic vaccines for cancer, but none are as yet approved for treatment of gynecologic malignancies.
According to the US National Institutes of Health, there are multiple therapeutic HPV vaccines in development using either vector-based, peptide and protein-based, or nucleic-acid based approaches, or whole cell (dendritic cell) approaches.
Current Study
Dr. Levinson noted that “DNA vaccines are both well tolerated and simple to produce, and the addition of calreticulin enhances immune response.”
The investigational vaccine is delivered via an electoporation device (TriGrid delivery system) that stimulates muscle at the injection site to produce an enhanced immune response.
In preclinical studies the device was associated with an enhanced immune response compared with standard intramuscular injection. The enhance immune effect persisted despite CD4 T cell depletion.
The investigators conducted a phase 1 dose-escalation study, administering the vaccine to two separate cohorts: women without HIV who had HPV16-positive cervical dysplasia (CIN 2/3) and women living with HIV with HPV16-positive cervical or vulvovaginal dysplasia (CIN 2/3, VIN 2/3 or VAIN 2/3).
The vaccine was delivered at weeks 0, 4, and 8, at doses of 0.3 mg, 1.0 mg, or 3.0 mg. At week 12, all patients underwent site-specific biopsy to verify non-progression.
At 6 months, the patients then underwent definitive treatment with either loop electro excision or vulvar/vaginal excision. At 12 months, all patients had standard evaluations with biopsies.
Dr. Levinson reported results for the first 14 women enrolled, 10 of whom were HIV-negative and 4 of whom were HIV-positive.
Of nine women in the HIV-negative arm who had completed 6-month visits and were evaluable, two had HPV16 clearance by 2-month follow-up, and seven had clearance at 6 months. Other HPV subtypes cleared in two of five patients at 3 months and in three of five at 6 months.
In addition, seven of nine patients in this arm had histologic regression at 6 months.
In the HIV-positive arm, the two patients with CIN had no HPV16 clearance at 3 months, but both had clearance at 16 months. The vaccine did not clear other HPV subtypes in these patients, however.
Of the two women in this arm who had VIN, one had HPV16 clearance and histologic regression at 6 months. The other patient had neither viral clearance nor histologic regression.
All participants tolerated each vaccine well. Adverse events were all grade 1 in severity and resolved within 4 weeks. The most common event was tenderness at the injection site. There were also three cases of mild headache, two cases of drowsiness, and one of nausea.
What’s Next?
In the question-and-answer session following the presentation, Ronald D. Alvarez, MD, MBA, chairman and clinical service chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, asked Dr. Levinson how the vaccine development will proceed.
“Obviously, you have more data to collect and analyze, but how are you going to move forward with what looks like equal efficacy between the 1 milligram and the 3 milligram doses? Are you just going to go with the maximum tolerated dose, or consider a lower dose if it shows equal efficacy in terms of histologic regression as well as HPV clearance?” he asked.
“This is something we’re very interested in, and we do plan for the dose-expansion phase to go with the higher dose,” Dr. Levinson replied. “We need to evaluate it further and we may need to do further randomization between the medium dose and the highest dose to determine if there are differences both with systemic and local responses.”
Robert DeBernardo, MD, section head of obstetrics and gynecology and the Women’s Health Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, asked whether Dr. Levinson and colleagues were considering evaluating the vaccine in transplant recipients, “because we have a lot of persistent HPV in that subgroup.”
Dr. Levinson said that one of the dose-expansion cohorts for further study is a population of patients scheduled for transplantation.
“What we’re interested in is looking at whether we can ‘cure’ HPV prior to transplantation, and we think that’s going to be the best way to show that this vaccine potentially eliminates the virus, because if we can eliminate the virus and then take a population that’s going to be immunodeficient, then that would show that there’s no reactivation of the virus,” she said.
The study is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Levinson, Dr. Alvarez, and Dr. DeBernardo had no conflicts of interest to report.
FROM SGO 2024