A vaccine for cervical cancer
By Nathan Seppa
From Washington, D.C., at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
In a preliminary study, a vaccine against a virus that can cause cancer has proved 94 percent effective in women. The success sets the stage for an enhanced version of the vaccine and the massive trial needed for government approval of the final product, which is intended to protect against the human papillomavirus (HPV).
Some HPV strains cause cervical cancer, while others are responsible for genital warts (SN: 11/23/02, p. 323: Virus Stopper: Vaccine could prevent most cervical cancers; 3/3/01, p. 132: Available to subscribers at Vaccine may prevent some cervical cancers). In the new trial, researchers gave 768 young women three injections of the vaccine, and 765 similar women three placebo shots. Over the following 3.5 years, only 7 women who were vaccinated developed an HPV infection, compared with 111 of those getting the inert shots, says Constance Mao of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.