HPV vaccine in the treatment of usual type vulval and vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: HPV DNA is found in almost 80% of VIN/VaIN. Current management is inadequate, with high recurrence rates. Our objective was to review the literature regarding the role of HPV vaccine in secondary prevention and treatment of VIN/VaIN. METHODS: Database searches included Ovid Medline, Embase, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library and Clinicaltrials.gov. Search terms included HPV vaccine AND therapeutic vaccine* AND VIN OR VAIN, published in English with no defined date limit. Searches were carried out with a UCL librarian in March 2018. We included any type of study design using any form of HPV vaccine in the treatment of women with a histologically confirmed diagnosis of VIN/VaIN. We excluded studies of other lower genital tract disease, vulval/vaginal carcinoma and prophylactic use of vaccines. The outcome measures were lesion response to vaccination, symptom improvement, immune response and HPV clearance. RESULTS: We identified 93 articles, 7 studies met our inclusion criteria; these were uncontrolled case series. There were no RCTs or systematic reviews identified. Reduction in lesion size was reported by all 7 studies, symptom relief by 5, HPV clearance by 6, histological regression by 5, and immune response by 6. CONCLUSIONS: This review finds the evidence relating to the use of HPV vaccine in the treatment of women with VIN/VaIN is of very low quality and insufficient to guide practice. Further longitudinal studies are needed to assess its use in prevention of progression to cancer. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12905-018-0707-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.