Immunogenicity and Safety of a 9-valent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine in HIV-positive Women

This is a phase IV (post-authorization study), open, single-arm trial of 9-valent human papillomavirus (9-HPV) vaccine in HIV-positive women. The recruitment and follow-up period will be 6 and 30 months, respectively.

At the initial clinical visit (V0), the conditions and objectives of the study were explained. The details were summarised in a document, which was presented to the patient who then signed the informed consent form. 2 mucosa samples were taken from the anal canal for the detection and genotyping of the HPV and for anal cytology; and high resolution anoscopy will be carried out. The patients will send to gynaecologist for exploration. Finally, full blood haemogram and blood chemistry analysis were measured, together with cluster of differentiation 4 (CD4), cluster of differentiation 8 (CD8) lymphocytes counts, HIV viral load (VL) and antibodies against 9 genotypes of the 9-HPV vaccine. 9-HPV vaccine will be administered at day 1 (V1), month 2 (V2) and month 6 (V3). Flow of subjects through the study in graphic 1.

Settings and locations: The patients who enrolled were HIV-positive women that were attending the Infectious Diseases Service of the "University Hospital Virgen de las Nieves", Granada (Spain), "Hospitalary Complex Ciudad de Jaén" (Spain) and "University hospital San Cecilio", Granada (Spain).

The purposes of the study were explained to the potential participants who then underwent screening, and enrolled if they met the inclusion criteria for the trial. They were asked to sign the fully informed consent form. The study will be conducted in compliance with ethical and moral principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki as well as the current Spanish Laws on Biomedical Research(LEY 14/2007, de 3 de julio). Data were coded to ensure anonymity.

SAMPLE SIZE CONSIDERATIONS:

Currently, the rate of infections in unvaccinated women in the participating centers is 46.4% (12). The efficacy rate of the tetravalent vaccine in the prevention of cervical cancer is close to 100% and in the appearance of external anal lesions in men, around 85% (21). Considering that in our study population, the effectiveness is at least 75%, to achieve an accuracy of 5% in the estimation of a proportion through a normal 95% asymptotic confidence interval, assuming that the proportion is 11, 6% (25% of 46.4%), it will be necessary to include 158 women in the study. To this sample size will be added 10% in anticipation of possible losses in the follow-up or dropouts.

DATA COLLECTION:

All data were collected and coded to ensure anonymity according to the current legal requirements in Spain and European Union (EU) (GDPR Regulation (EU) 2016/679). At the initial clinical visit (V0), the conditions and objectives of the study were explained to subjects. The details were summarised in a document, which was presented to the patient who then signed the informed consent form.

Inclusion criteria

• HIV-positive women patients of ≥18 years of age who, at the time of study inclusion were not infected simultaneously by the 16, 18 genotypes of HPV in vagina and/or anus.

Exclusion criteria

• WLHIV patients who had simultaneous anal infection with the 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52 y 58 genotypes. - WLHIV diagnosed in V0 of ASCC or anal HSIL.
• Active opportunist infection at the time of recruitment into the study.
• Cd4 count < 200 cel/µL.
• History of allergy to aluminium and/or yeast extract excipient.