A Curtin University-led project will investigate how vaccinations may help reduce the risk of anal cancer, after being awarded more than $1 million in National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding.
Rates of anal cancer are growing in Australia, particularly among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM).
In 90 per cent of cases, human papillomavirus (HPV) is the primary cause of anal cancer, despite HPV vaccination programs being implemented in Australian schools across all sexes since 2013, may older gay and bisexual men remain more exposed to the virus.
Lead researcher Associate Professor Jonathan Hallett from the Curtin School of Population Helath said there was a critical protection gap among adults aged over 35 years who were not eligible for vaccination during adolescence.
Speaking to OUTinPerth about the research Associate Professor Hallett said it was a fair assessment to say many gay men know very little about HPV.
“I think because a lot of the conversation about HPV has often been around young people in cervical cancer, the success of then HPV vaccination in Australia, has been around the school based vaccination program that started off in 2007 young girls and then was included boys in 2013 and we’ve seen declines in certain cancer from that which has been fantastic.”
“What our project is interested in is, there’s also a link between HPV causing around 90% of anal cancers. And so using that same mechanism, what does it look like for HPV vaccination for gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men?
“There’s currently already some research that suggests that it is protective against anal cancer. What we’re interested in looking at though, is what about the older men who have already been exposed now to HPV because they’re not in school? They didn’t get the vaccination as a teenager.”
Associate Professor Hallett explains that Western Australia is a unique position. While the HPV vaccine has not been given to older men in most of Australia, there have been a number of trials in Western Australia which as seen the vaccine being given to older gay men.
“In WA, there’s been quite extensive rollout of vaccinations for older gay men, so it doesn’t look quite the same elsewhere. So we’re doing a project across WA and New South Wales, essentially getting as many guys as we can to come into a clinic, get do some self sampling, and then we’ll look at the phenotypes of HPV that they’ve got, and assess whether there is a relationship there between vaccination and not getting anal cancer.
The new project will run over the next three years.
The incidences of anal cancer in Australia have increased significantly over the past decade with rates rising by an average of 3.4% annually since 2010.
Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men have up to 20 times higher risk compared with the general population, with current estimates suggesting rates of 20–40 per 100,000, comparable to rates of cervical cancer in women before the introduction of screening programs.
The prevalence is even higher for people who are HIV positive, with incidence rates of 131 per 100,000.
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OUTinPerth co-editor Leigh Andrew Hill is an employee of Curtin University. OUTinPerth co-editor Graeme Watson previously volunteered at WAAC working under the supervision of Jonathan Hallett.
