Progress in therapeutic HPV vaccines: observations from clinical trials

Abstract

Human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer accounts for a large number of new-onset malignant tumors caused by infection annually. Exogenous genes integrated into the tumors, mainly HPV E6 and E7, are ideal targets for therapeutic vaccines. Although there are no officially approved therapeutic HPV vaccines, several breakthroughs have been made in peptide-based, vector and DNA vaccines against HPV-related tumors and precancerous lesions. Therapeutic HPV vaccines alone showed limited clinical efficacy against HPV-related tumors, but preliminary results with combination treatments have been encouraging. Thus, more studies should focus on the role of HPV in tumorigenesis and tumor microenvironment to overcome therapy resistance and improve clinical efficacy.