Hi all --

Barry ges up today for his *last* visit in this phase of the trial. They will take blood and look at his injection site, so essentially a non-event. We have noticed an increase in forehead/back acne in the week after each injection -- not obvious except to us -- which might mean an immune response or perhaps a reaction to some "carrier" component of the vaccine.

We see Dr. Gillison in June, by then most of the cohorts (dose levels, there is no placebo arm) will be done but not sure when results will be available.

Dr. G. seems pretty confident that we should do well -- the follow-up for this trial is 12 years!

Re recognition of HPV, I have seen far more mention of this on web sites to do with oral cancer than in the year after Barry was diagnosed. However, many doctors are still unaware -- any oropharyngeal cancer, esp tonsillar, should be tested. Dr. Gillison feels tonsillar cancer is probably a "surrogate" for HPV+ cancer, at least in non-smokers.

Hopkins can do the testing if your hospital can't, and they can use the original pathology slides (which are usually kept for 5-10 years) if no tumor sample is available.

Gail