“Vaccines can be cost-prohibitive for patients without insurance coverage, so we hope that dermatologists will be more likely to recommend the HPV vaccine to patients 27-45 years of age if they know that it is likely covered by insurance,” Dr. Noe noted.
Dr. Megan H. Noe
However, “time may be a barrier for many dermatologists who have many important things to discuss with patients during their appointments,” she said. “We are currently working on developing educational information to help facilitate this conversation,” she added.
Looking ahead, she said that “additional research is necessary to create vaccine guidelines specific to dermatology patients and dermatology medications, so we can provide clear recommendations to our patients and ensure appropriate insurance coverage for all necessary vaccines.”
Vaccine discussions
“I think it’s great that many Medicaid plans are covering HPV vaccination,” said Karl Saardi, MD, of the department of dermatology, George Washington University, Washington, who was asked to comment on the study. “I routinely recommend [vaccination] for patients who have viral warts, since it does lead to improvement in some cases,” Dr. Saardi, who was not involved in the current study, said in an interview. “Although we don’t have the HPV vaccines in our clinic for administration, my experience has been that patients are very open to discussing it with their primary care doctors.”
Although the upper age range continues to rise, “I think getting younger people vaccinated will also prove to be important,” said Dr. Saardi, director of the inpatient dermatology service at the George Washington University Hospital.
The point made in the current study about the importance of HPV vaccination in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa is also crucial, he added. “Since chronic skin inflammation in hidradenitis drives squamous cell carcinoma, reducing the impact of HPV on such cancers makes perfect sense.”
The study received no outside funding. Dr. Noe disclosed grants from Boehringer Ingelheim unrelated to the current study. Dr. Saardi had no financial conflicts to disclose.