Extend HPV vaccination – researchers

Thousands more women – and even men – should be offered the new cervical cancer vaccine because of its extra benefits, researchers said yesterday.

Researchers in Austria found a range of diseases, including cancers, that were prevented by vaccination against the human papilloma virus vaccine.

They say women should be offered the vaccine up to the age of 45.

The human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine cuts the risk of cervical cancer, genital warts, and some less common cancers. Previous studies have shown that it does not provide this benefit for women with infections at the time of vaccination.

But information is lacking on the impact of vaccination on subsequent disease after a first diagnosis and treatment of HPV-related disease.

So Dr Elmar Joura of the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, and colleagues looked at figures on 17,622 women taking part in two international trials of quadrivalent HPV vaccine. Of these, 2,054 were diagnosed with HPV related disease (genital warts, vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia, or vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia).

Following treatment, the rate of any subsequent HPV related disease was 46 per cent lower for women who had been vaccinated than for those given placebo.

Details are published in the British Medical Journal. The authors write: "Vaccination was associated with a significant reduction in risk of any subsequent high grade disease of the cervix."

They conclude: "Previous vaccination with quadrivalent HPV vaccine among women who had surgical treatment for HPV related disease significantly reduced the incidence of subsequent HPV related disease, including high grade disease."

Dr Joura said: "Vaccination is to be recommended for everyone up to the age of 45. It provides protection not only from cervical cancer but also from other types of cancer, such as anal carcinoma.

"This protection applies to men and women equally.”

Writing in the journal, Dr Jane Kim of the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts, USA, says: "The current study moves us closer to understanding the full scope of benefits from HPV vaccination by showing for the first time that vaccine protection against disease can endure beyond the management of HPV related disease in women already vaccinated."

Effect of the human papillomavirus (HPV) quadrivalent vaccine in a subgroup of women with cervical and vulvar disease: retrospective pooled analysis of trial data. Joura, E. A. et al. The British Medical Journal March 28 2012 doi: 10.1136/bmj.e1401