Women with certain gene variations appear to be protected against cervical cancer, says a study led by scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, in New York City, and reported in the February issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research. Knowing whether women have these genetic variants could help physicians to tailor treatment strategies better, the study's authors conclude.

Virtually all cases of cervical cancer are caused by persistent infections from several of the human papillomaviruses (HPV)—a family of viruses that also cause common skin warts and genital warts. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in young adults, yet only a small subset of these infections lead to cervical cancer.

"Some people are better able than others to mount an immune response that suppresses their HPV infection," says Dr. Mark H. Einstein, associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology and women's health at Einstein. "We suspected that this advantage was probably due to variations in genes that play key roles in the body's immune response."

To find out, the researchers recruited 480 women and divided them into two groups: those with high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), which is a premalignant condition caused by HPV that can lead to cervical cancer, and a control group of women who had tested positive for HPV but hadn't developed high-grade CIN.

The researchers took cells from the women and looked for genetic differences between the two groups. They focused on a gene called TAP, known to be crucial to the immune system's ability to recognize viruses and eliminate them from the body.

The researchers found that study participants had key differences at two locations in their TAP genes. Women who possessed one or the other of the two gene variants were less than half as likely as other women to have developed high-grade CIN. Even women infected with the HPV types most likely to lead to cervical cancer were afforded protection by the variants. The finding suggests that knowledge of these genetic variants, known as polymorphisms, can provide important information regarding protection against cervical cancer.

"We're hopeful that our findings will lead to a genetic test that will help us predict which patients with persistent HPV infection are most likely to develop high-grade CIN and, ultimately, cervical cancer," Dr. Einstein says. "That knowledge should help us in mapping out effective treatment plans that are tailored to the individual patient. This trend of personalized medicine is becoming more common as new technologies offer hope of better tests."

Dr. Einstein's research was funded by the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation.

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine touts itself as one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education, and clinical investigation. It typically has about 2,000 faculty members, 750 M.D. students, 350 Ph.D. students, and 380 postdoctoral investigators.

Last year, the institution received more than $130 million in support from the National Institutes of Health.

That money helps fund major research centers at Albert Einstein College in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities.

Through an affiliation network involving five hospital centers in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Long Island, N.Y., the college claims to run one of the largest post-graduate medical training programs in the U.S., offering approximately 150 residency programs to more than 2,500 physicians in training.