Improving the Cervical Cancer Vaccine
Every year, 12,200 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cervical cancer, and more than 4,200 will die from it. That’s why cancer experts hailed cervical cancer vaccines—Gardisil and Cervarix—as breakthroughs when they were approved by the FDA several years ago. Now research from a multi-center trial involving labs around the world provides drug makers with insights on how to make the vaccines even better at preventing the disease.
Gardisil and Cervarix protect against precancerous growths related to two strains of human papilloma virus (HPV)—types 16 and 18. Together these strains cause 70 percent of cervical cancers.
The vaccines are currently approved for girls and women ages 9 to 26. If they get the three-shot regimen before they’ve been exposed to the high-risk strains, the vaccines are nearly 100 percent effective in staving off the disease associated with these two strains of HPV.
In the new research, scientists have identified the eight HPV types that are responsible for more than 90 percent of cervical cancer cases. To reach their conclusions, they looked at 60 years of data from more than 10,000 cases of invasive cervical cancer across 38 countries. Published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, the research fingered HPV types 16, 18, 45, 33, 31, 52, 58 and 35.
The researchers found that HPV 16, 18, and 45 were the most common HPV types and occurred at a much younger age than other high-risk HPV genotypes. Future screening should focus on these three types, they wrote.
Cervical cancer vaccines are already changing medical practice in the U.S., improving the fate of thousands of young women. But improved HPV screening and vaccines could have an even more profound impact worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, cervical cancer strikes 510,000 women across the globe, killing 288,000 of them each year. Some 80 percent of cases occur in developing countries.
“Clearly, a major focus of HPV vaccination must be in the developing world where cervix cancer is a truly major killer and cause of tremendous pain and suffering,” says Maurie Markman, M.D., vice president of patient oncology services and national director for medical oncology at Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
CONNECT THE DOTS
To learn more about cervical cancer, visit the websites of the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society. A new HPV test may help make cervical cancer obsolete. The Gynecologic Cancer Foundation offers specific information on cervical cancer vaccination at its public education website.
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