An oral vaccine has helped prevent recurrent urinary tract infections, according to early research by the Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom. According to the study, 54% of participants who received the vaccine remained disease-free for nine years after vaccination, without reporting side effects.
Urinary tract infections are one of the most common infections in the general population. According to the Brazilian Society of Nephrology, the condition mainly affects women, but can also affect men. There are two types of urinary tract infections: cystitis which affects the lower urinary tract (urethra and bladder), and the pyelonephritis which reaches the upper urinary tract (kidneys).
Urinary infections can be treated with antibiotics, however, when infections are recurrent, the bacteria can become resistant to the medicine reducing its effectiveness and increasing the number of infections.
Given this, doctors at the Royal Berkshire Hospital decided to study the efficacy and safety of MV140 vaccine , developed by Spanish pharmaceutical company Immunotek, to combat four inactivated bacterial species that cause urinary infections. The study was carried out with 89 patients.
The MV140 is a oral vaccine i.e, is administered as two sprays under the tongue every day for three months . Researchers have previously studied its short-term safety and effectiveness, but the new study is the first long-term follow-up.
“Before receiving the vaccine, all of our participants suffered from recurrent urinary tract infections, and for many women, these infections can be difficult to treat. Nine years after first receiving this new vaccine against the disease, about half of the participants remained infection-free,” says Bob Yang, consultant urologist at the Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust, in statement.
“Overall, this vaccine is safe in the long term and our participants reported having fewer, less severe urinary tract infections. Many who had a UTI told us that simply drinking plenty of water was enough to treat it,” he added.
The vaccine can be administered by family doctors for three months. According to Yang, many of the study participants reported that vaccination restored their quality of life. “Although we have not yet analyzed the effect of this vaccine in different patient groups, these follow-up data suggest that it could be a game changer for UTI prevention if it were widely offered, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments,” says the urologist.
How was the study carried out?
In the previous study, patients were followed for 12 months and the results obtained in women were published in BJU International in 2017. The new study followed participants for nine years and analyzed data from the original cohort's electronic health records. The researchers also interviewed the participants to understand what their experience with urinary tract infections was like since receiving the vaccine and whether there were any side effects.
According to the study, 48 participants remained completely infection-free for nine years . The average infection-free period across the entire cohort of participants was four and a half years — 56.7 months for women and 44.3, a year less, for men. 40% of patients reported that they repeated doses of the vaccine after one or two years.
“These findings are promising. Recurrent urinary infections represent a substantial economic burden and overuse of antibiotic treatments can lead to antibiotic-resistant infections. This follow-up study reveals encouraging data on the long-term safety and efficacy of the MV140 vaccine”, says Gernot Bonkat, professor of urology at the Alta Uro Urology Medical Center in Switzerland, and president of the EAU (European Association of Urology).
“More research is needed on more complex urinary infections, as well as research that analyzes different groups of patients, so that we can better optimize how to use this vaccine”, he adds. “While we need to be pragmatic, this vaccine is a potential breakthrough in preventing UTIs and could offer a safe and effective alternative to conventional treatments.”
The MV140 is available license-free in 26 countries. The researchers hope to publish the full results of the study by the end of 2024.
Source: CNN Brasil
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