Gardasil

CDC finds coverage for HPV vaccination among teens is still low

Source: medicalnewstoday.comAuthor: staff Although there has been a slight increase in human papillomavirus vaccination coverage among adolescents since 2012, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that vaccine coverage in this population remains "unacceptably low". Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the US. There are more than 150 types of HPV, 40 of which can be contracted through skin-to-skin contact during vaginal, anal or oral sex. Low-risk HPV types, such as HPV-6 and HPV-11, can cause warts around the genitals or anus. But high-risk types, including HPV-16 and HPV-18, account for approximately 5% of all cancers worldwide. Specifically, HPV-16 and HPV-18 account for around 70% of all cervical cancers and almost 50% of all vaginal, vulvar and penile cancers. HPV-16 is also accountable for more than 50% of throat cancers. There are currently two vaccines available for HPV, which are administered in three shots over 6 months. Cervarix and Gardasil are used for the prevention of cervical cancer, while Gardasil can also protect against anal, vulvar andvaginal cancers and genital warts. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that preteen girls and boys aged 11 or 12 are vaccinated against HPV. The vaccination is also recommended for teenage girls and young women up to the age of 26 who did not receive it when they were younger, and teenage boys and young men up to the age of 21. HPV vaccination coverage increased in 2012-13, but remains too low But despite these recommendations, a new report from the [...]

Charlotte Parker2014-07-25T10:13:50-07:00July, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Anti-seizure medications prevent cancer

Source: guardianlv.com Author: Lindsey Alexander A recent report came out from the journal Cancer indicating a new finding that anti-seizure medications might prevent some forms of cancer. Drugs like valporic acid (Depakote), are one form of prescription in this classification. Though also used as a mood-stabilizer, Depakote can prevent seizures from occurring, and has been investigated for cancer prevention. These particular anti-seizure medications have been found to inhibit genetic changes that lead to cancer of the head and neck. The study included nearly 440,000 veterans, including 27,000 who were taking valporic acid for various disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, seizures, and migraines. The overall findings suggested that veterans who were on the prescription were 34 percent less likely to develop cancers of the head and neck, than those who were not taking the drug. The risk decreased in those subjects who took higher doses or for longer periods of time. Dr. Johann Brandes with Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center was the team leader of this study. He claims that this 34 percent statistic means 16,000 new cases, and between 3,000 and 4,000 cancer deaths can be prevented every year. Though there is a strong association, the study did not form a direct cause-and-effect relationship between cancer prevention and anti-seizure medications. The National Cancer Institute describes cancers of the neck and head as usually squamous cell cancers that line mucosal surfaces inside the head and neck. This can affect the mouth, the throat, and the nose. This is a [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-03-30T10:04:44-07:00March, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

President’s panel calls for more girls, boys to get HPV vaccine

Author: Government news release Source: consumer.healthday.com Too few American girls and boys are getting vaccinated against the cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV), the President's Cancer Panel reported Monday. HPV is linked to cervical cancer as well as penis, rectal and oral cancers. One in four adults in the United States is infected with at least one type of HPV. Increasing HPV vaccination rates could prevent a large number of cancer cases and save many lives, the panel said. "Today, there are two safe, effective, approved vaccines that prevent infection by the two most prevalent cancer-causing types, yet vaccination rates are far too low," Barbara Rimer, chair of the President's Cancer Panel, said in a panel news release. "We are confident that if HPV vaccination for girls and boys is made a public health priority, hundreds of thousands will be protected from these HPV-associated diseases and cancers over their lifetimes," she added. Currently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that girls aged 11 and 12 receive either the Cervarix or Gardasil vaccines, and Gardasil is recommended for boys of similar age. In 2012, only a third of girls aged 13 to 17 got all three recommended doses of HPV vaccine, CDC data shows. That's much lower than the federal government's goal of having 80 percent of girls aged 13 to 15 fully vaccinated against HPV by 2020, the report said. The picture is even more disappointing for boys. Less than 7 percent of males aged 13 to 17 [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-02-11T13:11:27-07:00February, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Four Ways Katie Couric Stacked The Deck Against Gardasil

Source: ForbesPublished: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 This afternoon, Katie Couric ran a long segment on her daytime talk show, Katie, about what she called the “controversy” over the vaccines against human papilloma virus, or HPV, an infection that causes cervical, throat, penile, and anal cancers. She featured one mother who says that Gardasil, the HPV vaccine made by Merck , killed her daughter, and a young woman, seated with her mother, who said that Gardasil had caused years of illness that made her think she might die. (GlaxoSmithKline GSK +0.15% makes another HPV vaccine, Cervarix, that is less commonly used in the U.S.) Alongside those stories, Couric also featured two medical experts: Dr. Diane Harper, the chair of family and geriatric medicine at the University of Louisville, who helped test Gardasil but has since argued that the vaccine has been over-marketed and its benefits oversold; and Mallika Marshall, a Harvard Medical School doctor who is Couric’s in-house medical correspondent. Marshall defended the vaccine; strangely, only her arguments appear on the show’s Web site. Despite the attempt at balance, I think most viewers will be left with the impression that the vaccine is dangerous and that its benefits don’t outweigh its risks – a conclusion that is not shared by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Here’s how Couric stacked the deck against the HPV vaccine: 1. By downplaying the effectiveness of [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-12-05T13:18:37-07:00December, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Merck’s Experimental HPV Vaccine Shows Promise in Late Stage Trial

Source: Nasdaq By: Peter Loftus Published: November 3, 2013 An experimental Merck & Co. vaccine appeared to provide broader protection against a cancer-causing virus than the company's Gardasil shot in clinical trials. Merck said the study results support its plan to submit the new vaccine, code-named V503, for U.S. regulatory approval by year's end, which could lead to market launch next year at the soonest. Merck expects health-care providers to eventually switch to V503 if the product receives marketing approval. Some analysts expect its annual sales could exceed $1 billion. "The case for using V503 is even stronger than the case for using Gardasil, which was already strong," said Roger Perlmutter, head of Merck's research and development unit. Dr. Perlmutter has singled out V503 as one of the programs Merck will focus on as it overhauls its R&D unit in a bid to recover from a series of setbacks. Gardasil, launched in 2006, was the first vaccine to protect against human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer in women and other less-common types of cancer in males and females. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends HPV vaccination of boys and girls ages 11 and 12, though it is approved to be given to people ages 9 to 26. GlaxoSmithKline also sells an HPV vaccine called Cervarix. Gardasil is designed to protect against four strains of HPV, two of which are believed to be responsible for about 70% of all cervical [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-11-05T11:13:34-07:00November, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Vaccine Found to Help with Cancers of Throat

Source: NY Times By: Donald G. McNeil Jr. A vaccine that protects women against cervical cancer also appears to protect them against throat cancers caused by oral sex, and presumably would protect men as well, according to a study released Thursday. Rates of this throat cancer have soared in the past 30 years, particularly among heterosexual middle-aged men. About 70 percent of oropharyngeal cancers are now caused by sexually transmitted viruses, up from 16 percent in the 1980s. The epidemic made headlines last month when the actor Michael Douglas told a British newspaper that his throat cancer had come from performing oral sex. Oncologists have assumed that the human papillomavirus vaccine, which is used to prevent cervical cancer, would also prevent this other type of cancer, but this was the first study to provide evidence. “This is a very nice paper,” said Dr. Marshall R. Posner, medical director for head and neck cancer at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the study. “We expected this — that’s why we want everyone to vaccinate both boys and girls. But there’s been no proof.” The study, supported by the National Cancer Institute, found that Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, provided 93 percent protection against infection with the two types of human papillomavirus that cause most of the cancers. “We were surprised at how big the effect was,” said Dr. Rolando Herrero, head of prevention for the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-07-19T11:20:48-07:00July, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Celebrity confession linking sex to oral cancer raises local awareness

Source: www.vancouversun.com Author: Pamela Fayerman Michael Douglas is credited for raising awareness about the links between oral sex and oral cancer, but experts worry his disclosure could cause public panic and stigmatize the disease to the point of bringing shame to those afflicted. Or worse, prevent patients with symptoms from getting examined promptly. Miriam Rosin, a BC Cancer Agency scientist, said the actor’s candid revelation that his throat cancer was caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), which he picked up from performing cunnilingus, is raising awareness of a growing problem around the world, and in B.C. “It’s created a lot of noise. I think it’s important to talk about this disease … but not in a headline-grabbing way, which may damage the cause by labelling it as a sexually transmitted disease,” said Rosin, who is also a Simon Fraser University professor. Regardless, the public is finally getting the message that HPV, the most common sexually transmitted virus in the world – and the one that causes virtually all cases of cervical cancer – is accounting for the surge in throat cancers located at the back of the throat. In B.C., if trends continue, HPV-caused throat cancers are expected to overtake cervical cancers in incidence. About 150 cases of cervical cancers are reported annually in this province. Of about 500 head and neck cancers, 115 are HPVcaused throat cancers, according to the BCCA. Douglas’s interview with The Guardian newspaper last month was followed by an avalanche of sensational media reports that apparently [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-07-19T07:43:16-07:00July, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Oral cancer sneaks up

Source: well.blogs.nytimes.com Author: Donald G. McNeail Jr. and Anahad O'Connor The actor Michael Douglas has done for throat cancer what Rock Hudson did for AIDS and Angelina Jolie did for prophylactic mastectomy. By asserting last week that his cancer was caused by a virus transmitted during oral sex, Mr. Douglas pushed the disease onto the front pages and made millions of Americans worry about it for the first time. In this case, it was a subset of Americans who normally worry more about being killed by cholesterol than by an S.T.D. The typical victim is a middle-aged, middle-class, married heterosexual white man who has had about six oral sex partners in his lifetime. The virus, human papillomavirus Type 16, also causes cervical cancer. So is there any early oral screening that a man can have — an equivalent to the Pap smear, which has nearly eliminated cervical cancer as a death threat in this country? The answer, according to cancer experts and a recent opinion from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, is no. And for surprising reasons. The Pap test — invented in 1928 by Dr. George N. Papanicolaou — involves scraping a few cells from the cervix and checking them under a microscope for precancerous changes. Precancerous cells have a “halo” around the nucleus, while cancerous ones have larger, more colorful nuclei, said Dr. Paul D. Blumenthal, a professor of gynecology at Stanford University Medical School. In theory, it should be similarly easy to scrape and examine [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-06-12T07:35:44-07:00June, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Fact check: Michael Douglas on HPV and throat cancer

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com Author: Meredith Melnick A Michael Douglas interview in The Guardian caused waves when the publication reported that the "Behind the Candelabra" star revealed HPV, the human papilloma virus, to be the cause of his stage-4 throat cancer diagnosis in 2010. "Without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV, which actually comes about from cunnilingus," Douglas allegedly told The Guardian. Douglas, through his publicist, has said that the statement was misinterpreted: He wasn't saying that his cancer was caused by the sexually transmitted disease -- merely that many cancers like his are HPV-positive. As The Daily Beast points out, there is scant research evidence to directly link the act of cunnilingus with HPV infection. But regardless of the details of his own cancer, the actor is right about one thing: A growing majority of oral cancer cases are caused by HPV. While most strains of HPV clear up on their own, the sexually transmitted disease is responsible for an array of cancers. As Douglas describes, it's true that oral sex is an avenue through which a person can contract HPV and especially the strains, HPV-18 and HPV-16, the latter of which is responsible for half of oral cancer cases, according to the National Cancer Institute. HPV-16, HPV-18 and some less-common strains can also cause cancers of the cervix, vagina, vulva, anus and penis. Douglas' experience follows trends in cancer diagnosis, according to a January report from the American Cancer Society, which found a rise [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-06-04T07:22:57-07:00June, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Dose of reality: HPV is epidemic, which is odd since it is largely preventable

Source: www.sciencenews.org Author: Nathan Seppa There are two vaccines that guard against human papillomavirus, and they are in rare company among medical inventions — the vaccines prevent cancer. Only the hepatitis B vaccine can make the same claim. Cancer-causing HPV can trigger abnormal cell growth on the cervix, and cervical cancer still kills up to 4,000 U.S. women each year. The virus is also implicated in cancers occurring in the anus and the throat. All told, according to a 2011 study, 29 percent of sexually active U.S. girls and women carry a potentially cancer-causing HPV infection. Preteen and adolescent girls and boys are priority groups for vaccines that prevent human papillomavirus infection.© Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters/Corbis Back in 2006 and 2009, when the HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix came onto the market, health officials dreamed of halting the spread of HPV, which is sexually transmitted, in a single generation. Scientists call such blanket coverage herd immunity — in which a pathogen gets vaccinated into oblivion, becoming so rare that even unvaccinated people are protected. With such heady potential, Gardasil, developed by Merck, and Cervarix, created by GlaxoSmithKline, should be an easy sell. They rev up a potent immunity against HPV 16 and 18, the two types of the virus that account for most cases of cervical cancer. Gardasil also prevents most genital warts. The immunity the vaccines provide is many-fold better than the weak protection engendered by a run-in with the virus itself, and since approval, both vaccines have proven [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-04-24T12:59:51-07:00April, 2013|Oral Cancer News|