New vaccines poised to hit the market could make cervical cancer a thing of the past in countries willing and financially able to make use of them, experts in the field predict. The major breakthroughs are aimed at preventing transmission of human papillomavirus, or HPV, the primary risk factor for developing cervical cancer.
"These are very exciting times for all of us in the field of cervical cancer prevention," said Dr. Alex Ferenczy, a McGill University professor and researcher who is an investigator on a clinical trial for one of two vaccines racing to market.
"I believe we finally arrived to the point of being able to prevent the majority of cervical cancer and pre-cancer by simply vaccinating women against the most frequent HPV types that are known to cause cervical cancer."
Dr. Philip Davies, head of the European Cervical Cancer Association, agreed Tuesday that these are heady times.
"At this point in time, we have the means to virtually eliminate cervical cancer. So it's really the first human cancer that we could virtually eliminate in developed nations," said Davies, who splits his time between Lyons, France, where the association is headquartered and Montreal, where he is an adjunct professor in McGill's department of cancer epidemiology.
"I think one of the things I find most exciting about this is that this a very nice example of where the basic research has been going along in the background - most people have known nothing about this, most people still don't know anything about HPV - and now we're seeing the translation of all this basic research into technologies that are going to make an impact on people's lives," Davies said.
In Canada, 1,350 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer this year, and an estimated 400 will die of the disease.
Two types of HPV - numbered 16 and 18 - are responsible for about 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer.
Two pharmaceutical giants - Merck and GlaxoSmithKline - have each produced vaccines which in preliminary trials show remarkable efficacy at protecting women against persistent infection with HPV16 and HPV18.
The GlaxoSmithKline trial, reported last fall in the New England Journal of Medicine, was 100 per cent effective in preventing persistent infection - which is believed to cause the cancer risk.
Data from a trial of Merck's vaccine - which protects against HPV16 and HPV18 as well as the two types which cause genital warts, HPV6 and HPV11 - were presented at the Vancouver conference.
Link.... http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_24452.html
"These are very exciting times for all of us in the field of cervical cancer prevention," said Dr. Alex Ferenczy, a McGill University professor and researcher who is an investigator on a clinical trial for one of two vaccines racing to market.
"I believe we finally arrived to the point of being able to prevent the majority of cervical cancer and pre-cancer by simply vaccinating women against the most frequent HPV types that are known to cause cervical cancer."
Dr. Philip Davies, head of the European Cervical Cancer Association, agreed Tuesday that these are heady times.
"At this point in time, we have the means to virtually eliminate cervical cancer. So it's really the first human cancer that we could virtually eliminate in developed nations," said Davies, who splits his time between Lyons, France, where the association is headquartered and Montreal, where he is an adjunct professor in McGill's department of cancer epidemiology.
"I think one of the things I find most exciting about this is that this a very nice example of where the basic research has been going along in the background - most people have known nothing about this, most people still don't know anything about HPV - and now we're seeing the translation of all this basic research into technologies that are going to make an impact on people's lives," Davies said.
In Canada, 1,350 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer this year, and an estimated 400 will die of the disease.
Two types of HPV - numbered 16 and 18 - are responsible for about 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer.
Two pharmaceutical giants - Merck and GlaxoSmithKline - have each produced vaccines which in preliminary trials show remarkable efficacy at protecting women against persistent infection with HPV16 and HPV18.
The GlaxoSmithKline trial, reported last fall in the New England Journal of Medicine, was 100 per cent effective in preventing persistent infection - which is believed to cause the cancer risk.
Data from a trial of Merck's vaccine - which protects against HPV16 and HPV18 as well as the two types which cause genital warts, HPV6 and HPV11 - were presented at the Vancouver conference.
Link.... http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_24452.html
