There is a medical breakthrough tonight in the prevention of cervical cancer. A major drug company has announced its experimental cervical cancer vaccine is highly effective.

This cervical cancer vaccine, which is not the only one in development, was shown to be 100 percent effective!

Merck & Co. said on Thursday that the first large study of an experimental cervical cancer vaccine was completely effective in the short term, at blocking the most common forms of cervical cancer.

Gardasil is a genetically engineered cervical cancer vaccine that blocks infection by the two viruses that together cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers.

The sexually transmitted viruses are HPV—or human papilloma viruses-- 16 and 18.

The researchers looked at more than twelve thousand sexually active women ages 16 to 26. Half got three cervical cancer vaccine doses over six months; at day one, month two, and month six.
Half got dummy shots.

Among those still virus-free after the first six months, none who received the cervical cancer vaccine developed either cervical cancer or precancerous lesions likely to turn cancerous even after an average of 17 months of follow up.

In other words, it was one hundred percent effective.

Dr. Kevin Holcomb, Director of Gynecologic Oncology at Beth Israel Medical Center, says, “It’s potentially a big hit. Those 3700 deaths per year are tragic. They’re preventable, but we spend millions of dollars and put millions of women through painful procedures and the anxiety that comes along with getting a letter that your pap smear is abnormal. The thought that we could reduce that to a minimum and perhaps eradicate one day is extremely exciting.”

And in a second analysis even in women who got only one dose, it was still 97 percent effective.

“It’s extremely impressive that these women mounted an immune response with just one dose of cervical cancer vaccine that persisted for 36 months. But until this vaccine or some other cervical cancer vaccine is available to the general public, women have to take advantage of the screening that is so effective already, with a yearly pap smear,” says Dr. Holcomb.

The Merck cervical cancer vaccine also reduces infection with HPV 6 and 11, which cause 90 percent of genital warts cases.

But who do you vaccinate? “In this country I think you’d have to say the essential targets for cervical cancer vaccination would be young teenagers,” says Dr. Holcomb.

Listen to these numbers and what kind of impact this vaccine can have:

Cervical cancer is the number one cancer killer worldwide, especially in Asia and Africa. It is the second most common cancer in women and their no. 2 cause of cancer deaths.

Cervical cancer results in approximately 290,000 deaths worldwide each year. In the United States an estimated 10,400 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed in 2005, and there will be an estimated 3,700 deaths from cervical cancer.

It is estimated that approximately 20 million men and women in the United States are infected with HPV. And each year, about one million women in the United States are told they have "an abnormal pap" - which may trigger additional testing, anxiety, and in some cases fears of cancer.

Merck’s shares rose nearly 2 percent in heavy early trading.

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