Stéphanie Longet, John T Schiller, Martine Bobst, Patrice Jichlinski, Denise Nardelli-Haefliger
The available virus-like particle (VLP)-based prophylactic vaccines against specific human papillomavirus (HPV) types afford close to 100% protection against the type-associated lesions and disease. Based on papillomavirus animal models, it is likely that protection against genital lesions in humans is mediated by HPV type-restricted neutralizing antibodies that transudate or exudate at the sites of genital infection. However, a correlate of protection was not established in the clinical trials because few disease cases occurred, and true incident infection could not be reliably distinguished from the emergence or reactivation of prevalent infection...
December 2011: Journal of Virology