Actually one of the primary and most important modes of HPV's action is known, though not the only mechanism by which it works its damage. The virus interferes with p53 that causes natural apoptosis in cells, creating immortal cells, the most basic quality of a malignant cell.

Cancer treatments even for the same staging of disease around the country vary widely, and are as unique as the doctors training and the facilities preferences where they are working. Variances (some good, some a sign of out dated thinking) definitely exist. Having just come from a conference on emerging and novel treatment modalities of cancer treatment, and as a presenter at this same conference, I am fairly well up to date on what the current thinking is. Remember that a drug TRIAL protocol, which is what you have described, is not an established treatment protocol, as by definition it is still being determined if it is effective. The future is indeed targeted therapies, which were spurred by Irresa, thought by many to be a drug failure. However in approximately 10% of the patients treated with it, it was 100% effective. These patients it turned out had genetic similarities. The idea that mapping of genetic similarities will yield patient specific protocols based on mapping and defining these similarities was given a shot in the arm. One day, it may be possible to tailor a drug and treatment protocol unique as a single individual. The mapping of the human genome (now completed) has subsequently lead us to the conclusion that cancer is not a handful of diseases, but actually hundreds of individual diseases. This exponentially makes that quest for cure more difficult, but it is a matter of time and experimentation to find what works against what. It is likely that the transformation of cancer from a killer to a manageable disease that could be lived with, even without permanent cure, will involve all the above, combined with angiogenesis inhibitors, Cox-2 inhibitors, targeted receptor blockers, and more. Treatment as we know it today will be a dinosaur in the foreseeable future.

But in general given that every hospital has its own guidelines for treatment (even those that generally follow the NCCI guidelines), it is wrong to state that what you are seeing at Hopkins is a reflection of what is happening nationally, or for that manner any other given institution. Do other institutions have research programs involving HPV ongoing? For sure. But sampling of tumors for HPV is not a matter of national routine.

In CA next year cervical exams will include mandatory HPV testing. People who are positive for it will be on a more abbreviated recall for testing, as it is the cause of 98% of all cervical cancers. What the problem really is, is not the fact that you have it now, but this lack of understanding of the shedding process and how you get rid of it through some natural process we do not currently understand, since there is no such thing as a viracide. The rate of re-infection is also an unknown, though clearly an important component, and the fact that there is no reasonable manner to test males for it