Word: hpv
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...hard to ignore the letters H-P-V in a headline. Much has been written about HPV, or human papillomavirus, which infects some 20 million people in the U.S. and causes cervical cancer and genital warts. Even more has been written about the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, which was approved by the government last summer and is widely recommended for girls and women aged 11 to 26. But many consumers still have questions: for starters, can the vaccine help women who are already infected? Can it help older women over the age of 26? And can it do anything for boys...
...Gardasil has become a vaccine rock star, but vaccines to fight HPV are still in their infancy. Another study in this week's NEJM points out that while the preventative vaccine works 98% of the time to protect girls not yet infected with HPV-16 and HPV-18, the vaccine is only 17% effective against cancer precursors overall. These findings could undercut the argument ensuing in more than 15 states to make the vaccine mandatory for young girls...
...HPV is ubiquitous. Of the 120 strains isolated from humans - about 40 of which are in the mouth and genital tracts - Merck's recently FDA-approved vaccine, Gardasil, protects against four: HPV-6 and HPV-11, which cause warts; and HPV-16 and HPV-18, which cause about 70% of cervical cancers. Similarly, according to the study, HPV-16 was present in 72 of the 100 cancer patients enrolled in the study. Between 12,000 and 15,000 new cases of oropharyngeal cancer are diagnosed each year, and about 3,000 people die from it. "It is a significant health...
...study's findings bring to light a part of the debate over HPV vaccination and treatment that is often overlooked: the elevated risks of cancer that being HPV-positive has for men. According to Johns Hopkins' researcher Dr. Maura Gillison, who worked on the study: "When you look at the cancers associated with HPV in men - including penile cancer, anal squamous cell carcinoma, oral cancers - it's very close to the number of cases of cervical cancer that occur in the U.S. in women every year. We need to adjust the public's perception... that only women are at risk...
...clinical trial are preventative, but drug companies such as MGI Pharma are studying therapeutic vaccines to treat those already infected with the virus. "We need to come up with better vaccines - and we need to study them in men," says Haddad. Gardasil has not been tested against oral HPV, but Dr. Douglas Lowy, laboratory chief at the National Cancer Institute, says that there is every reason to think that, in principle, "the vaccine should be able to have an impact on oral cancers attributable to HPV." Lowy says that the next studies might start with a look at the rate...