First Chat of 2019 - Vaccines in Cancer Care and Risk Reduction 1/9/19

"Vaccine therapy is a type of treatment that uses a substance or group of substances to stimulate the immune system to destroy a tumor or infectious microorganisms such as bacteria or viruses." - NCI

We have talked in this community about how the HPV vaccination reduces the risk of cervical cancer (HPV and Cervical Cancer - 2/2017). Did you know it may also help reduce head and neck cancers caused by HPV? Did you know that the Hepatitis B vaccine helps reduce long term infection with HPV which can lead to liver cancer? Did you know that vaccine research to treat ovarian cancer is currently taking place? 

If you would like to learn more about the use of vaccines to treat and reduce your risk of cancer, please join us on Wednesday January 9, 2019 at 9pmET (8pmCT, 6pmPT) as the #gyncsm community chats about Vaccines in Cancer Care and Risk Reduction.

Since January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, we will include the HPV vaccine and latest CDC recommendations. We will also look at current ovarian cancer trials and how a patient's immune system can be trained to fight cancer tumor cells.

Guiding our discussion will be the following Topic (T:) questions:

T1: What vaccines are available before you develop cancer to reduce your risk? Are there different types?

T2: What cancers can be caused by HPV? How does the HPV vaccine reduce the risk of HPV-related cancers?

T3: What are the current U.S. recommendations for HPV vaccination? Who should get vaccinated, when and how many doses?

T4: What are cancer treatment vaccines? How do they work?

T5: In which gynecologic cancers are treatment vaccines being studied? Has there been progress in this area?

You may learn about our topic on this Cancer.Net page:
https://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/how-cancer-treated/immunotherapy-and-vaccines/what-are-cancer-vaccines

See you on Wednesday!
Dee
Co-moderator