Gardasil Vaccinations Prove Even More Effective Against H.P.V

According to the results of a study shown Thursday on Web MD.com Gardasil, the new controversial vaccine that is used on pre-teen girls to help prevent the sexually transmitted disease H.P.V. or Human Papilloma Virus, is actually more effective then previously thought.

The study was done by Dr. Darren Brown, professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at Indiana State University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana and some of his colleagues and sponsored by Merck, who manufactures the vaccine. The study seems to show that the vaccine may protect women much more effectively than previously thought from H.P.V., which is found to be responsible for a large percentage of cervical cancer. Human Pappiloma Virus is found to be responsible for up to 90% of cervical cancers.

Gardasol is a new vaccine that has been endorsed by the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) to be effective against cervical cancer and other diseases in females. Clinical evidence has shown that the drug protected against H.P.V. 16 and H.P.V. 18 that has been found to cause 70% of cervical cancers and H.P.V. 6 and H.P.V. 11 that causes 90% of genital warts.

In a new study of 11,000 girls and young women ages 15-26 the vaccine was found to be38% effective against 10 more types of H.P.V. that is thought to cause 20% of all cervical cancers.

Brown had conducted another study earlier this year that showed Gardasil has continued to be nearly 100% effective in preventing precancerous lesions due to 2 strains of H.P.V. Brown told Web MD that he wasn't surprised by the results of the study. Brown claims that most of the strains of the virus are related. Gardasil was also shown to be 45% effective against types H.P.V. 45 and type H.P.V. 31, which are also linked to cervical cancers.

Gardasil has caused a large amount of controversy in the U.S. because to be effective it must be administrated to girls before they reach sexual maturity, at the ages of 9-13 according to recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or (C.D.C). Brown is hoping that the results of his studies will encourage parents to have their daughters vaccinated.

H.P.V. is the most commonly sexually transmitted disease in Americans. It is estimated by the C.D.C. that about 6.2 million Americans are infected with genital H.P.V. every year and that half of all sexually active men and women will become infected at some point in their lives.

World-wide, cervical cancer is the 2nd most common cancer among young women with 470,000 new cases and 233,000 deaths each year attributed to the disease. Among American women there are nearly 10,000 new cases of cervical cancer and 4,000 deaths each year recorded.

Most women with healthy immune systems mop up or seem to clean the disease out of their systems and show no long term effects to their health. Some strains of H.P.V. can cause abnormalities in the lining of the cells lining the cervix that will turn into cancer in future years.

Women should be screened annually for cervical cancer and H.P.V.

Sources for this article are as follows: http://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/HPV-Genital-Warts/news/20070919/cervical-cancer-vaccine-is-a-winner