Study indicates vaccine prevents cervical cancer

An experimental vaccine to prevent the most-common forms of Cervical cancer proved highly effective in a two-year test on more than 10,000 girls and women, drug maker Merck says.

Merck is hoping to win Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the vaccine, Gardasil, and put it on the market as soon as late 2006. It would be the first vaccine to prevent Cervical cancer, a disease caused almost exclusively by a highly common sexually transmitted virus called the Human papilloma virus, or HPV.

Doctors expect the vaccine to be routinely offered to girls - and boys, too, because they can spread the virus to their partners. But the practice is running into opposition from conservatives and religious groups.

Cervical cancer is cancer of the uterine cervix, the portion of the uterus attached to the top of the vagina. Ninety percent of cervical cancers arise from the flattened or "squamous" cells covering the cervix. Most of the remaining 10% arise from the glandular, mucus-secreting cells of the cervical canal leading into the uterus. To work, the vaccine ideally should be administered before people become sexually active, so parents may be called on to decide if they should vaccinate children as young as 9 or 10 against a sexually transmitted disease.

"I see this as a phenomenal breakthrough," said Dr. Gloria Bachmann, director of the Women's Health Institute at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J. She was not involved in the research.

Worldwide, Cervical cancer is one of the most-common cancers among women. It kills nearly 300,000 a year, including about 3,700 in the United States.

About 20 million Americans have some form of HPV, which in addition to Cervical cancer can cause painful genital warts. HPV does not always cause Cervical cancer.

The genetically engineered vaccine prevents Cervical cancer by blocking infection from the two strains of HPV that cause 70 percent of all cases of the disease.

Genital warts are soft wart-like growths on the genitals caused by a viral skin disease. Genital warts are a type of sexually transmitted disease (STD).

The virus responsible for genital warts is called human papilloma virus (HPV). This virus can cause warts on the penis, vulva, urethra, vagina, cervix, and around the anus.

HPV infection around the genitals is common, although most people have no symptoms. Even if you do NOT have symptoms, however, you must be treated to avoid complications and spreading the condition to others.