HPV Vaccine Refusal Explored Among Cancer Survivors

MONDAY, Dec. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Cancer survivors refusing participation in a trial assessing the safety and immunogenicity of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine do so mainly due to vaccine-related concerns, according to a study published online Dec. 19 in Cancer.

Brooke Cherven, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and colleagues conducted a secondary analysis of data from an open-label clinical trial assessing the safety and immunogenicity of the HPV vaccine among vaccine-naive cancer survivors aged 9 to 26 years. Survivors/parents who declined to participate in the trial were asked their reasons for declining; these reasons were categorized.

The researchers found that 215 of the 301 survivors (71.4 percent) who refused participation in the trial did so for reasons related to the HPV vaccine. Safety concerns, vaccine hesitancy/disinterest, external influences, vaccine‐related information deficits, and health beliefs/family decisional processes were reasons for vaccine-related refusal. Females were more likely than males to refuse for reasons related to health beliefs/family decisional processes and were less likely to refuse due to external influences (odds ratios, 2.08 and 0.43, respectively). Survivors approached during the latter years of the trial were more likely to refuse due to safety concerns (odds ratio, 3.33).

“Findings from this study have implications for clinical practice because health care providers, both oncologists and primary care clinicians, can potentially address many of these reasons by using evidence‐based communication strategies,” the authors write.

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