Cancer vaccine shows early success
Friday June 17th, 2011
A programme that vaccinates women against cervical cancer is showing some early success, researchers reported today.
The human papillomavirus vaccination programme in Australia has led to a reduction of high-grade cervical abnormalities, a study has found.
Writing in The Lancet, Dr Julia Brotherton, of the Victorian Cytology Service Registries, East Melbourne, Victoria, and colleagues, say theirs is the first report of a decrease in incidence of high-grade cervical abnormalities – pre cursers to cervical cancer – within three years after a population-wide HPV vaccination programme was introduced.
But, she cautions: “Linkage between vaccination and screening registers is needed to confirm that this ecological observation is because of vaccination and to monitor participation in screening.”
Australia introduced an HPV vaccination programme, with the quadrivalent HPV vaccine, for all women aged 12-26 years between 2007 and 2009.
The authors analysed trends in both high-grade and low-grade cervical abnormalities in women in Victoria, Australia, before and after introduction of the vaccination programme.
They found that after the introduction of vaccination, the incidence of HGAs in girls aged 17 years and under fell by 0.38 per cent as compared with before the vaccination programme - from 0.80 per cent to 0.42 per cent among screened women, almost halving.
There was no decline for LGAs or in older age groups.
The authors say: "Our finding that the decrease in HGA incidence occurred in the youngest vaccination cohort before it occurred in the older, catch-up cohorts (who were more likely to have been previously sexually experienced) reinforces the appropriateness of the targeting of prophylactic HPV vaccines to preadolescent girls."
In a linked Comment, Dr Mona Saraiya and Dr Susan Hariri, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, urged caution about the findings.
“Individual-level vaccine status was not considered – as it perhaps should have been in view of the availability of such data in Victoria – and, as stated by Brotherton and colleagues, linkage between vaccination and screening registers is needed to confirm these findings independent of possible bias by screening policy or practice changes.”
Tags: Australia | Cancer | Flu & Viruses | Women’s Health & Gynaecology
Printer friendly page