Vaccine protects against cervical cancer

Many students on campus are related to someone who has had cancer, know an individual with… Many students on campus are related to someone who has had cancer, know an individual with cancer or have had cancer themselves. Most forms of the disease are not gender-discriminate.

But a few are isolated to either men or women, primarily those that deal with sexual organs.

As the second deadliest cancer in women ages 15 to 44, cervical cancer is one form of the disease that has recently gained much attention from Americans.

In a typical year, cervical cancer kills approximately 233,000 women internationally. Within the United States, around 9,710 women are diagnosed with the disease annually.

“Unlike many forms of cancer, cervical cancer is not strongly associated with a genetic predisposition. Rather, it is attributed to infection by Human Papillomavirus. HPV is associated with almost all cases of cervical cancer,” the National Institute of Health’s Web site said.

The HPV infection is a sexually transmitted disease and can be contracted through intercourse and oral sex.

In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that more than 20 million people in the United States were estimated to have had this virus.

Of the more than 100 strains of HPV, there are two predominant strains of the infection that lead to more than 70 percent of cervical cancer cases worldwide: HPV16 and HPV18.

Clinical tests began nearly 20 years ago by John Schiller and Douglas Lowy of the National Cancer Institute, who concentrated on an HPV vaccination. A few years ago, they finally created a revolutionary product, which is now manufactured by Merck.

This new vaccination, called Gardasil, was released in the United States and has been proven to be nearly 100 percent effective against the HPV16 and HPV18 strains of cervical cancer, as well as HPV6 and HPV11 strains (from which 90 percent of associated genital warts cases arise).

Gardasil is currently approved only for women between the ages of 9 and 26. Preferably, women should receive the vaccine prior to beginning sexual activity. The injection is given to