Gardasil

37% of U.S. teen girls got HPV vaccine

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Daniel J. DeNoon More than one in three U.S. teen girls has had at least one shot of Gardasil, a CDC survey shows, but only 18% of girls got the three shots needed for protection. The survey includes girls vaccinated through 2008, two years after Gardasil's approval. A second HPV vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, is expected to be approved this year. Gardasil, from Merck, protects against the four strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts. But other HPV strains also cause these diseases, so even vaccinated women still need regular Pap exams. Gardasil's acceptance varied widely by state. More than half of all teen girls aged 13 to 17 had at least one shot of the HPV vaccine in six states: Arizona, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Fewer than one in five girls got the vaccine in three states: Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Coverage was highest in Rhode Island (54.7%) and New Hampshire (54.4%) and lowest in Mississippi (15.8%) and Georgia (18.5%). Cervical cancer is more common in women of Hispanic descent and in people living below the poverty level. Perhaps because the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program provides the expensive vaccine to uninsured children, girls in these groups had higher rates of coverage than other girls. The CDC reported results of the survey in today's issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Source: MMWR, Sept. 17, 2009; vol 58: pp 997-1001.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-09-25T12:57:21-07:00September, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Three clinical studies give GSK’s cancer vaccine an edge

Source: EH News Bureau Author: Staff GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Limited (GSK) recently shared the results of three recently published clinical studies, conducted for its cervical cancer vaccine—Cervarix. Said Dr Hasit Joshipura, Vice President, South Asia and Managing Director, GSK India, "The findings confirmed that the vaccine offers protection against five of the most common cancer-causing virus types, generates significantly higher immune response compared to the other available vaccine Gardasil and provides high and sustained antibody levels for at least 7.3 years till date." The clinical studies involved 18,644 women and was published in The Lancet. The study confirmed that Cervarix is not only highly effective at protecting against the two most common cervical cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV) types, 16 and 18, but also provides additional cross-protection against HPV types 31, 33 and 45, the three most common cancer-causing virus types beyond 16 and 18. This additional efficacy could translate into approximately 11-16 per cent extra protection against cervical cancer over and above the protection afforded by efficacy against HPV 16 and 18 alone. In India, the same five HPV types are responsible for almost 90 per cent cervical cancer cases. "These results amply demonstrate that preventive vaccination is one of the most effective methods of primary prevention of HPV infection, the necessary cause of cervical cancer. In tandem with screening tests, it is perfectly positioned to lend a decisive edge against this deadly cancer. Extending the scope of protection beyond types 16 and 18 will allow prevention of the vast majority [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-08-21T04:48:45-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil still faces questions

Source: www.philly.com Author: Marie McCullough Three years after the world's first cervical-cancer vaccine was hailed as a public-health breakthrough, Gardasil is facing renewed questions about its safety and value. In today's Journal of the American Medical Association, federal researchers analyze 12,424 voluntary reports of post-vaccination "adverse events" ranging from headaches to deaths. They conclude that only two complaints - fainting and dangerous blood clots -- are more common than expected and may be related to the immunization. But an accompanying editorial points out that many questions about Gardasil remain - key among them, whether it really will reduce the toll of cervical cancer. Another opinion piece in JAMA looks at Merck & Co.'s marketing strategy, contending the company coopted professional medical societies to promote and recommend the vaccine. Merck - already on the defensive over Gardasil's second-quarter sales, which slumped sharply in the United States and worldwide - said in a statement that "we welcome continued study and discussion" of the product's safety. "The bottom line is that Gardasil has a very positive benefit-risk profile," Richard M. Haupt, head of Merck's clinical program for the vaccine, said in an interview. Gardasil, a series of three shots, protects against two strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause 70 percent of cervical-cancer cases. Gardasil also wards off two other HPV strains that cause 90 percent of genital warts in men and women. Next month, advisers to the Food and Drug Administration will consider whether to recommend expanding Gardasil's current [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-19T06:37:56-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Give Gardasil to boys too, experts say

Source: www.abc.net.au Author: Dina Rosendorff Recent evidence shows the human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer in women, is poised to become one of the leading causes of oral cancer in men because of changing sexual behaviours. The findings have reignited the debate over whether boys should be given the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil. A visiting British virologist, Professor Margaret Stanley, says governments around the world need to examine the long-term economic and health benefits of immunising boys and young men. The head of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital, Professor Suzanne Garland, says Australia is leading the way in the rollout of the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil, which immunises against HPV. "We are in our third year of rolling out the vaccine and we are in the order in the school-based group, in the high 70s, whereas in many other countries, they have only got 30 per cent who have been vaccinated," she said. But now the vaccination debate has switched genders. There are growing calls from the medical community for boys and young men to also be vaccinated against HPV. Advocates include one of Britain's top cervical cancer specialists, Professor Margaret Stanley from Cambridge University, who says a cervical cancer jab in the arms of boys would not just be for the sake of girls. "These HPVs don't just cause cancer in women. They cause it in men as well. Cancer in the mouth, cancer in the anus and those cancers are very hard [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-07-25T15:19:10-07:00July, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

HPV vaccine debate shifts to boys

Source: Buffalo News Author: Henry L. Davis New questions arise as cancer tied to HPV is rising in men Parents who face the dilemma of whether to protect their young daughters with a vaccine aimed at a sexually transmitted infection that causes cervical cancer now face a new question: Should they do the same for their sons? As evidence mounts of a rising number of other cancers linked to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a debate has intensified over whether to give the vaccine to males. Advocates say vaccinating boys and men can prevent them from passing on the virus to their sexual partners. Critics still question the long-term safety and effectiveness of Merck & Co.’s Gardasil, despite studies indicating that its risks and lasting power are within the range of other vaccines. But a newer wrinkle in the debate is the discovery in recent years that oral HPV infections — most likely acquired from oral sex with multiple partners—significantly increase the risk of head and neck cancers. The rate of oral cancers is rising so steadily, especially in men, that, if the trend continues, there may be more oral cancers in the United States caused by HPV in 10 years than by tobacco or alcohol, a major study concluded last year. “We should be investing our care and dollars in preventing HPV infection instead of treating the cancers,” said Dr. Thom Loree of Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Physicians at the cancer center have begun publicly touting the benefits of [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-07-15T13:04:17-07:00July, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Vaccine debate shifts to boys

Source: www.buffalonews.com Author: Henry L. Davis Parents who face the dilemma of whether to protect their young daughters with a vaccine aimed at a sexually transmitted infection that causes cervical cancer now face a new question: Should they do the same for their sons? As evidence mounts of a rising number of other cancers linked to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a debate has intensified over whether to give the vaccine to males. Advocates say vaccinating boys and men can prevent them from passing on the virus to their sexual partners. Critics still question the long-term safety and effectiveness of Merck & Co.’s Gardasil, despite studies indicating that its risks and lasting power are within the range of other vaccines. But a newer wrinkle in the debate is the discovery in recent years that oral HPV infections — most likely acquired from oral sex with multiple partners—significantly increase the risk of head and neck cancers. The rate of oral cancers is rising so steadily, especially in men, that, if the trend continues, there may be more oral cancers in the United States caused by HPV in 10 years than by tobacco or alcohol, a major study concluded last year. “We should be investing our care and dollars in preventing HPV infection instead of treating the cancers,” said Dr. Thom Loree of Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Physicians at the cancer center have begun publicly touting the benefits of the vaccine on males after seeing an increase in the number of throat [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-07-12T09:00:58-07:00July, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Samuel Broder: Why Isn’t There a Gardasil for Men?

Source: Health.usnews.com Author: Samuel Broder, M.D. There's an HPV vaccine for women; why don't men have one? Why was the vaccine against the cancer-causing, sexually transmitted HPV virus not approved for men at the same time it was for women? Is there any reason to think that men and women would react to it differently? Interesting question. First, a little background. Gardasil is a genetically engineered vaccine to immunize girls and women ages 9 to 26 against four types of human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is the name given to a family of viruses, many of which can be transmitted from one partner to another through sexual activity. HPV may represent the most frequent sexually transmitted infection in the United States. It is estimated that over 6 million people become infected by a sexually related form of HPV every year. Some estimates suggest that over half of all sexually active males and females become infected at one point or another in their lifetimes. Certain types of HPV can sometimes evade the body's immune system and, when they do, establish a state of persistent infection. That in turn may cause certain cancers. Indeed, this is now recognized as the major cause of cervical cancer and related conditions, and vaccines that immunize people against HPV could make a dramatic impact against these diseases. Gardasil is the first vaccine in the United States approved for the prevention of cervical cancer and precancerous cell abnormalities in the cervix and also certain precancerous conditions in the [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-05-19T15:39:45-07:00May, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Glaxo’s cervical cancer vaccine faces US battle

Source: Forbes.com Author: Linda A. Johnson New studies show GlaxoSmithKline PLC's vaccine Cervarix blocks the virus that causes cervical cancer, but if it wins approval for U.S. sales, it will face an uphill battle against Gardasil, which has owned the market here for three years. Cervarix, Glaxo's vaccine against human papilloma virus or HPV, already is approved in more than 90 other countries, but has been held up by delays in the United States. Several years ago, the British drugmaker was in a neck-and-neck race with rival Merck & Co., Gardasil's maker, to be first on the U.S. market, but it lost when Gardasil got approved in June 2006. Late in 2007, the Food and Drug Administration declined to approve approve Cervarix. GlaxoSmithKline submitted a new application on March 30 that included final data from an 18,000-woman study recently completed. Final results from that study and two others are being presented this weekend at a conference in Sweden on papillomavirus. FDA is expected to decide whether to approve Cervarix within several months. If it does, analyst Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, said doctors who have prescribed Gardasil for a few years may see no reason to switch - unless GlaxoSmithKline convinces them its product is much more effective or has fewer side effects. Both vaccines target the two types of HPV that cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers, types 16 and 18, and data indicate both are about 98 percent effective. But Merck also [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-05-08T18:53:28-07:00May, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

HPV data may aid vaccine’s effectiveness

Source: health.usnews.com Author: staff The majority of invasive cervical cancers in New Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s contained DNA from human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) and HPV type 18 (HPV18), says a new study. It also found that women diagnosed with HPV16- or HPV18-positive cancers were an average of five years younger than those diagnosed with cancers associated with other HPV types. The HPV vaccine (Gardasil) protects against infections caused by HPV16 and HPV18, so the new findings may have implications for future cancer screening programs, the researchers said. The researchers analyzed U.S. data in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registry and identified 1,213 cases of in situ cervical cancer diagnosed between 1980 and 1999, as well as 808 cases of invasive cervical cancer diagnosed between 1980 and 1999 in New Mexico. HPV16 DNA was found in 53.2 percent of invasive cervical cancers, HPV18 DNA was found in 13.1 percent, and HPV45 DNA in 6.1 percent. HPV16 DNA was found in 56.3 percent of in situ cervical cancers, HPV31 DNA in 12.6 percent, and HPV33 DNA in 8 percent. Patients' median age at diagnosis of invasive cancer with HPV16 and HPV18 was 48.1 years, and 45.9 years, respectively. Median age at diagnosis of invasive cancer with other HPV genotypes was 52.3 years. The study is in the March 24 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. "To our knowledge, this is the largest study of its kind conducted in a U.S. population," wrote a team [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-04-13T09:08:21-07:00April, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

What Farrah Fawcett can teach us about anal cancer

Source: health.usnews.com/blogs Author: Deborah Kotz As much as I think celebrities should be afforded their privacy—like the rest of us—when they're battling life-threatening diseases, I sometimes blog about their conditions because I see them as teaching moments. Farrah Fawcett is in the news today with reports that she's been hospitalized for complications of anal cancer. She was first diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006. Speculation was running wild that she was "close to dying," but the latest reports say she's suffering from a blood clot that resulted from an "alternative" cancer treatment she had in Germany to fight the cancer's recurrence. Anal cancer is one of those cancers no one likes to talk about because it's, well, anal cancer. But we really should discuss it as much as, say, cervical cancer. Both are predominately caused by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. In fact, a 2004 study of 6,000 anal cancer patients (the majority of whom were women) found that 73 percent of the patients tested positive for the strain HPV-16, one of the strains that the Gardasil vaccine protects against. What's worrisome is that unlike cervical cancer, which has dropped dramatically since the advent of the Pap smear, anal cancer is on the rise. Incidence rates over the past 30 years have jumped by 78 percent in women and 160 percent in men, probably because more people now have more sexual partners and more people have anal sex (both among heterosexuals and gay men), says Lisa Johnson, a cancer epidemiologist [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-04-08T18:25:08-07:00April, 2009|Oral Cancer News|