Word: papillomavirus
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...First, some history. The new vaccine, known as Gardasil, was approved earlier this month by the Food and Drug Administration, as the first ever designed to prevent cancer; it works by guarding against the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is thought to cause about three of every four cases of cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women, and the third most deadly around the world. It kills close to 4000 women each year in the U.S. alone...
Before we tackle those issues, however, a short biology lesson is in order. Almost all cervical cancers are caused by a few strains of a sexually transmitted microbe called human papillomavirus, or HPV. Most of the time, a woman's body can deal with an HPV infection without any trouble--which is a good thing since a majority of sexually active women are believed to develop one at some point in their lives. In a small percentage of cases, the virus persists in the body, and in an even smaller percentage of those cases, the infection triggers a complex process...
...That's because an overwhelming 70% of cervical cancer cases around the world are caused by strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which are transmitted via intercourse. Gardasil, the second cancer-fighting vaccine approved by the agency, is designed to prevent infections of four of the most common strains of HPV. (It will also fight off HPV infections that cause genital warts...
Gardasil protects against four types of human papillomavirus, which account for the vast majority of the 500,000 cervical-cancer cases and the 32 million new cases of genital warts around the world each year. Last fall Merck released encouraging results from its clinical trial in which 755 healthy sexually active women were injected with the protective shots three times over six months and none developed precancerous growths in the cervix after four years...
...VACCINES If all goes well, the FDA could approve the first vaccine for cervical cancer by 2006. A large-scale study presented at a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in October found that Merck's experimental vaccine Gardasil was 100% effective against two strains of human papillomavirus that cause 70% of all cervical cancers. Another experimental Merck vaccine was tested this year for protection against shingles, the painful blistering disorder caused by the chicken-pox virus. In a trial of more than 38,500 adults 60 and older, the vaccine cut the risk of shingles by more...