New systemic treatments in HPV infection

Abstract

Human infection with various genotypes of human papillomaviruses (HPV) is one of the most common sexually transmissible viral infections. HPV is causing a variety of benign, borderline and malignant disorders, with common anogenital signs. The therapy of cutaneous and mucosal infections with confirmed HPV involves local and/or systemic treatment, applied separately or in combination. HPV requires antiviral systemic treatment, but at present there isn’t an antiviral systemic medication approved against HPV infections. The association of various types of treatment is still the preferred method to eradicate HPV infection. This paper offers information about possible systemic treatments of HPV infection, based on the documentation from the PubMed database (1989-2018), including immunomodulatory drugs, antiviral medications, therapeutic HPV vaccines and biological therapy. More studies are still needed with similar models, with multiple biological samples and with follow-up for periods long enough to allow a comparison of the short-term/long-term effectiveness of various types of systemic treatment for HPV.