vaccine – Page 8 – Oral Cancer News

Cancer-Preventing Vaccines Given To Less Than Half Of US Kids

Source: www.houstonpublicmedia.org Author: Carrie Feibel U.S. regulators approved a vaccine to protect against the human papilloma virus (HPV) in 2006, but cancer experts say misconceptions and stigma continue to hamper acceptance by both doctors and parents. Eighty percent of Americans are exposed to the human papilloma virus in their lifetimes. Some strains of HPV can cause genital warts, but most people experience no symptoms and clear the virus from their systems within a year or two. But for an unlucky minority, the virus causes damage that, years later, leads to cervical cancer, throat cancer, and other types. Researchers at MD Anderson are frustrated that ten years after the first vaccine arrived on the market, only 42 percent of U.S. girls, and 28 percent of boys, are getting the three-shot series. The series can be given to girls and boys between the ages of 9 and 26, but the immune response is strongest at younger ages, before sexual activity begins. n 2007, then-Texas governor Rick Perry proposed making the HPV vaccine mandatory for all preteen girls. At the time, the vaccine was only approved and marketed for girls. Dr. Lois Ramondetta, a cervical cancer specialist at MD Anderson, remembers the outcry. “A lot of people felt that was the right idea, but the wrong way to go about it. Nobody really likes being told what to do, especially in Texas,” Ramondetta said. “I think there was a lot of backlash.” Eventually, the legislature rejected Perry’s plan, even though it included an opt-out [...]

Charlotte Parker2016-09-27T11:19:43-07:00September, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Why men need to start caring about HPV

Source: www.refinery29.com Author: Sarah Jacoby The human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of very few STIs that we have a vaccine for. And — bonus! — that vaccine prevents cancer. But a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released last month indicated that although we've made some improvements in the vaccination rates, they still aren't where we want them — especially for boys. This is despite the fact that pretty much everyone who's sexually active will get the virus at some point and men are at risk for their own unique set of HPV-related health consequences. Let's start with the basics: "HPV is a virus that’s sexually transmitted, but it’s incredibly common," explains Kathleen Schmeler, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Up to 80% of people get it at some point in their lives, she says, which is why some doctors refer to it as the "common cold" of STIs. For most people, the virus goes away on its own, without causing symptoms or needing treatment. Some people develop genital warts that can be treated with medication. But in some rare instances, the virus can go on to cause more serious health issues — including some types of cancer. "The problem is we don't know who’s going to clear it and who won’t," Dr. Schmeler says. Most notably, HPV is known to cause cervical cancer. In fact, nearly all cases of cervical cancer are attributed to HPV. In 2013, the most recent [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-09-11T06:23:50-07:00September, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Despite medical backing, HPV vaccine rates remain low amid sexual and moral controversy

Source: www.omaha.com Author: Rick Ruggles, World-Herald staff writer The HPV vaccine can reduce the rates of certain cancers, including many cervical and oral cancers, physicians and medical organizations say. But opposition by some individuals is strong, and HPV vaccination rates remain low when compared with other kinds of vaccinations recommended for adolescents. Because the human papillomavirus is sexually transmitted and seventh grade is considered the ideal time to receive the three-dose vaccine regimen, the issue is rife with sexual and moral implications. Perhaps more potent today, though, are Internet horror stories and concerns about side effects. A World-Herald Facebook request for views on the HPV vaccine generated far more negatives than positives. “NO NO & NO!! There is NO reason for this vaccine,” one wrote. Another called it a “deadly shot.” Two Omaha mothers who were interviewed expressed their belief that it’s wise to have children vaccinated, and said their kids suffered no side effects. But an Iowa man described health problems suffered by his daughter, and he and an Ohio physician believe the girl was injured by the HPV vaccinations. So mediocre are HPV vaccination rates that GSK, the maker of Cervarix, plans to cease distribution of its HPV vaccine in the United States in September. It will continue to supply it in many other nations, such as Great Britain, Germany, France and Mexico. The departure of Cervarix leaves the market to Gardasil, a vaccine produced by Merck. “GSK has made the decision to stop supplying Cervarix ... in [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-07-24T12:18:56-07:00July, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Rate of HPV-associated cancers on the rise in U.S., according to new CDC report

Source: www.curetoday.com Author: Andrew J. Roth Though the first preventive human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration 10 years ago, the incidence of HPV-associated cancers is on the rise. From 2008 to 2012, the number of HPV-associated cancers diagnosed per year increased by approximately 16 percent compared with the previous five-year period, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nearly all sexually active individuals in the U.S. will get at least one type of HPV in their lifetime, making it the most common sexually-transmitted infection in the country. And though about 90 percent of HPV infections will clear a person’s system within two years, some infections persist and can cause cervical cancers and some types of vulvar, oropharyngeal, penile, rectal and cancers. There are over 40 HPV types, and vaccines are available for HPV types 16 and 18 (which account for 63 percent of HPV-associated cancers), as well as for types 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58 (which account for an additional 10 percent). Type 16 is the most likely to persist and develop into cancer. In this new report, the CDC analyzed data from its own National Program of Cancer Registries as well as the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. In total, 38,793 HPV-associated cancers (11.7 per 100,000 persons), on average, were diagnosed annually from 2008 to 2012 compared with 33,369 diagnoses (10.8 per 100,000 persons) from 2004 to 2008. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-07-16T15:47:18-07:00July, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

HPV-related cancer Is ‘epidemic’—but few get vaccinated

Source: www.newser.com Author: Michael Harthorne, Newser Staff "Every parent should ask the question: If there was a vaccine I could give my child that would prevent him/her from developing six different cancers, would I give it to them?” Electra Paskett, co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at Ohio State University, tells CBS News. The answer appears to be no. According to NBC News, a CDC report released Thursday shows a 17% increase in HPV-related cancers between 2004 and 2012 to nearly 39,000 per year. Dr. Lois Ramondetta, an expert in gynecologic oncology, says it's become an "epidemic" especially for men, in whom HPV can cause cancers of the mouth, tongue, and throat. HPV increases the risk of those cancers by at least seven times, and unlike with HPV-caused cervical cancer in women, there's no screening for them. The CDC report found 93% of all HPV-related cancers could be prevented with the currently available vaccine. That's approximately 28,500 fewer cases of cancer every year, AFP reports. And yet in 2014, only 40% of teen girls and 22% of teen boys received the necessary three doses of the vaccine, which works best if administered before teens become sexually active. Paskett calls those numbers "extremely sad." “We must change the perception of the HPV vaccine from something that prevents a sexually transmitted disease to a vaccine that prevents cancer," she tells CBS. (Some British teens invented condoms that change color near HPV and other STDs.)

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-07-11T21:21:07-07:00July, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

HPV vaccine important preventive tool for survivors of childhood cancer

Source: www.curetoday.com Author: Ellie Leick As childhood cancer survivors are at an increased risk of developing second cancers later in life, James Klosky recommends that this population receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) series of vaccines. A survey of 679 survivors one to five years out of treatment was conducted to evaluate how many received the vaccine compared with their healthy peers. A great disparity was discovered, as survivors — all of whom were between age 13 and 26 — were less likely to receive the vaccine. Researchers also investigated the reasons why many survivors did not receive it. Klosky, an associate member and director of psychological services in cancer survivorship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, presented the findings from this research at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), a gathering of 30,000 oncology professionals in Chicago. CURE spoke with Klosky at the meeting to discuss the key takeaways and the importance of the HPV vaccine to survivors of childhood cancer. Can you give an overview of the study and its purpose? The HPV vaccine is the first vaccine that’s designed to prevent cancers. We are particularly interested in the application of this vaccine amongst survivors of childhood cancers, who are at increased risk for HPV-related cancers in young adulthood relative to their healthy peers. On average, the onset of these cancers occur seven years earlier in survivors of childhood cancers compared to their healthy peers. Additionally, survivors of childhood cancer have an increased [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-07-01T19:47:53-07:00July, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Frontline Cancer: vaccines for HPV near guarantee

Source: www.lajollalight.com Author: Dr. Scott Lippman Dear Scott: “Our son, who is 25, went to the GP yesterday and his doc wasn’t sure about giving the Gardasil I had been bugging him to get. Didn’t you tell me about the benefits of the HPV vaccination?” The note was from a friend. It was personal, but also a topic of wide public interest and one that remains much discussed among cancer researchers and physicians. That’s why I’m answering my friend here. Roughly 12 percent of all human cancers worldwide — more than 1 million cases per year — are caused by viral infections (called oncoviruses) and attributed to a relatively small number of pathogens: human papilloma virus (HPV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Given the emphasis upon other causal factors of cancer, such as genetic mutations or environmental sources, it’s a statistic that’s not well known nor, I would argue, fully appreciated. Human viral oncogenesis is complex, and only a small percentage of the infected individuals develop cancer, but that 12 percent translates into more than 500,000 lives lost each year to virus-caused malignancies. Many of those deaths are preventable because effective vaccines already exist for HPV and HBV. Right now. No future discoveries required. I want to specifically talk about the HPV vaccine. Controversy has constrained its proven effectiveness as a public health tool, but if used as prescribed, the HPV vaccine could essentially eliminate cervical and other HPV-caused cancers. Infection with HPV [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-05-26T08:54:23-07:00May, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Forgotten patients: New guidelines help those with head-and-neck cancers

Source: www.fredhutch.org Author: Diane Mapes and Sabrina Richards Stigma, isolation and medical complexity may keep patients from getting all the care they need; recommendations aim to change that. Like many cancer patients, Jennifer Giesel has side effects from treatment. There’s the neuropathy in her hands, a holdover from chemo. There’s jaw stiffness from her multiple surgeries: an emergency intubation when she couldn’t breathe due to the golf ball-sized tumor on her larynx and two follow-up surgeries to remove the cancer. And then there’s hypothyroidism and xerostomia, or dry mouth, a result of the 35 radiation treatments that beat back the cancer but destroyed her salivary glands and thyroid. “I went to my primary care doctor a couple of times and mentioned the side effects,” said the 41-year-old laryngeal cancer patient from Cleveland, who was diagnosed two years ago. “She was great but she didn’t seem too knowledgeable about what I was telling her. She was like, ‘Oh really?’ It was more like she was learning from me.” Patients like Giesel should have an easier time communicating their unique treatment side effects to health care providers with the recent release of new head-and-neck cancer survivorship guidelines. Created by a team of experts in oncology, primary care, dentistry, psychology, speech pathology, physical therapy and rehabilitation (with input from patients and nurses), the guidelines are designed to help primary care physicians and other health practitioners without expertise in head-and-neck cancer better understand the common side effects resulting from its treatment. The goal is [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-04-11T07:48:09-07:00April, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Call for NZ Government to fund HPV vaccine for boys

Source: www.nzherald.co.nz Author: Martin Johnston Throat-cancer patient Grant Munro paid for his son to be vaccinated against the sexually-transmitted HPV virus because the Government has refused. A 58-year-old scientific expert on viruses, he is backing a campaign by doctors calling for the extension of state funding of the controversial HPV vaccine to boys. Dr Munro, whose cancer was linked to HPV infection, says it is a form of discrimination against males that the Government will only pay for girls to have the vaccine. State medicines agency Pharmac said it had decided not to fund the Gardasil vaccine for boys at present, but it is an option for the future. Its advisory committee assigned a low priority to funding it for all males aged 11-19 and high priority for males 9-26 "who self-identify as having sex with other males". In Australia, the vaccine is government-funded for boys and girls. Gardasil can protect against four strains of HPV - human papilloma virus - that can cause pre-cancerous lesions in the genital tract and mouth, and genital warts. It has been offered to New Zealand girls partly to help reduce cervical cancer. Rates of throat-related cancers have risen sharply since the 1980s and HPV, from oral sex, is thought to be the cause. The actor Michael Douglas was treated for tongue cancer caused by HPV and has spoken of the link between HPV and performing oral sex. After Dr Munro was treated for a tonsil tumour that contained evidence of HPV, he paid [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-03-21T06:32:24-07:00March, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

HPV rates down, CDC credits vaccine

Source: www.thv11.com Author: Winnie Wright Researchers say the rates of a cancer causing virus are on the decline thanks to vaccinations. In recent years, vaccinations have become a hot-button issue for parents and the HPV vaccine was no exception. When the CDC began recommending the Human papillomavirus vaccine in 2006, there was a lot of push back from parents. A new study from the CDC says the rates of HPV infection are down 63 percent among girls ages 14 to 19 in the last decade and it credits the HPV vaccination. The vaccine was very controversial when it hit the main stream 10 years ago, and THV11 wanted to know, have those findings changed parents’ minds about the vaccination? “I think there was a great fear that the HPV Vaccine was some sort of signal to adolescent girls that sex was safe. And that there would be an increase in sexual activity and promiscuity, and in fact, that’s not happened. We’ve seen sort of the opposite,” explained Dr. Gary Wheeler, CMO for the Arkansas Department of Health. HPV is most commonly spread through sex. According to the CDC, an estimated 79 million females aged 14-59 are infected with HPV. 14 million new infections are reported in the U.S. each year. When Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, was introduced in 2006, it was a hard pill for many parents to swallow. The vaccine is especially encouraged for children under the age of 12, because it’s most effective the younger you are. Parents [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-03-02T14:49:52-07:00March, 2016|Oral Cancer News|