A very common sexually transmitted virus isn’t responsible for only cervical cancer, and thousands of other cancer cases may be prevented though expanded vaccine use, according to a leading Johns Hopkins researcher.
“If we are going to have a public policy discussion about the full potential of the vaccine, it should be inclusive of these other cancers,” said Dr. Maura Gillison, a researcher in the Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
The vaccine Gardasil, manufactured by Merck and Co., was approved in 2006 to prevent the human papilloma virus in women ages 9 to 26. HPV can lead to genital warts or cervical cancer.
But half of the 20,000 cancers caused by HPV each year are not cervical cancer but are cancers also occurring in men, such as oral or anal, Gillison found.
“A quarter of all HPV-associated cancers in the U.S. occur in men, and we not having any discussion yet” on expanding the vaccine to use in men.
Gillison, credited as the first to identify HPV infection as the cause of certain oral cancers, reported these findings this week in the journal Clinical Cancer Research and a paper for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 11,000 cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed per year between 1998 and 2003, according to the CDC. More than 3,800 women died of the disease in 2004.
The vaccine covers four types of HPV, two of which — types 16 and 18 — account for about 70 percent of cervical cancers, Gillison said. Most of the other types of cancers also are caused by these two types, suggesting the vaccine would be effective to prevent those.
Merck spokeswoman Tracy Ogden said recently that studies are under way to evaluate the vaccine in males ages 16 to 26. The trials are looking at the vaccine’s effectiveness against genital warts, certain pre-cancers and penile cancer, she said, but does not include oral or neck cancer.
Most men don’t develop symptoms from HPV infection, according to the CDC.
While rates of cervical cancer are going down because of aggressive screening efforts, the rates of cancers that aren’t screened — such as oral and anal — are rising, Gillison said.
This makes a case for developing effective screening, such as an oral rinse that has been found to detect HPV infection.
“Right now,” she said, “there is no standard screening for these other cancers.”
