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By Vivian Richardson, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Almost zero. That's how low the chances of developing cervical cancer caused by two types of the human papillomavirus is for women who get vaccinated against the virus.
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A new study reveals women vaccinated with a vaccine for HPV types 16 and 18, which are responsible for nearly 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer, have close to no chance of developing cervical cancer.
"We were able to show a very high degree of efficacy of this vaccine," study author Kevin Ault, M.D., told Ivanhoe. The researcher from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said this study shows the vaccine to be around 98-percent effective and safe.
Researchers studied more than 12,000 women between ages 15 and 26. Half the women were given the true vaccine, while the other half were given a placebo. The researchers report in women who had not been exposed to either HPV 16 or HPV 18, the vaccine was 98-percent effective at preventing the early stages of cervical cancer. When women who tested positive for one of the two strains of HPV were included in the data, the vaccine was only 44-percent effective.
"What this study showed is that it's very, very important to get women before they are exposed to the viruses, and therefore you have to expose them very young to the vaccine," William Schaffner, M.D., told Ivanhoe. Dr. Schaffner was not part of this study, but as professor and chair of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., he said this study reaffirms the need to vaccinate young women.
"The concept that we now have a vaccine that that will be effective at preventing up to 70 percent of cervical cancers is very, very exciting, and it's a great milestone in women's health," Dr. Schaffner said. Though Pap smears can catch cervical cancer early enough to effectively cure it, not every woman is getting the screening on a regular basis.
"There are many women who don't adhere to the screening program. If we could but immunize them early on, we would benefit even those women who don't get regular attention when they get older," Dr. Schaffner said.
A recent study from researchers at Brown University in Providence, R.I., suggested genital skin cancer is three-times more likely to kill women than men. Doctors believe at least some cases of this rare cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). The virus can hide out in the skin cells of unsuspecting men and women, waiting for decades before causing cancer. Elderly women, unfortunately, are more likely to die because skin cancers in the genital area often go undetected until it's too late.
Dr. Ault said it is still too early to say the HPV vaccine will wipe out cervical cancer. "There are about a dozen different types of HPV that cause cervical cancer, and we have the two worst ones in this vaccine, but there are still others," he said.
The vaccine is recommended for women ages 9 to 26. Three injections are given over six months.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Interview with Kevin Ault, M.D.; William Schaffner, M.D.; The New England Journal of Medicine, 2007;356:1915-1927
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