The National Cancer Institute has awarded $4 million to Mount Sinai, MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas Health Science Center to study the effectiveness of anal cancer screening interventions among women with a previous HPV infection diagnosis.
Most anal cancers, 90 percent, are linked to HPV infection, making women with a previous diagnosis a high-risk group, accoring to an Aug. 9 news release.
The five-year trial, led by a team of physicians and researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, MD Anderson Cancer Center and UTHealth, both Houston-based, will involve 300 women. The team will screen women with and without a history of HIV infection to assess how effective existing tests are, and to estimate the prevalence and incidence of high-risk anal precancers.
"Given there are currently no evidence-based guidelines for screening this high-risk group, our study will lay the groundwork for more effective evaluations of women who have been diagnosed with other conditions that may increase the risk for anal cancer,” said Keith Sigel, MD, PhD, co-principal investigator of the study and associate professor medicine at Mount Sinai.
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