Cervarix offered “11 to 16 percent extra protection against cervical cancer over and above the protection afforded by efficacy against the two most common types alone.” Research indicates that this is the first time protection has been shown against “pre-cancerous lesions not containing the two most common virus types.”

This is good news for cervical cancer research. Cervarix is approved in 90 countries, but has yet to be approved in the United States.

Image: sxc.hu.

Post from: Blisstree

Cervarix Fights Cancer Causing Viruses

The battle to supply a vaccine against cervical cancer for use across Britain has been won by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

Cervarix, the GSK vaccine, will be given to girls aged between 12 and 13, starting in September this year, and should prevent about 70 per cent of cervical cancers — saving 400 lives a year when the effect is fully felt.

Read more from The UK Times Online.

Let’s wait and see what Merck (maker of the other cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil) has to say about this.

Post from: Blisstree

GSK Won UK Cervical Cancer Contract

Regarding these HPV vaccines that will protect women against cervical cancer, the CDC recommends that the vaccine should be routinely given to girls at 11-12 years of age – the stage before young girls are more likely to become sexually active.

Now there is a new project that will evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of these vaccines.

The said project -funded by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – will be jointly conducted by the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and the New York State Department of Health.

The said project is an attempt to determine how many people are receiving the vaccine and whether or not it is having a measurable impact on rates of cervical cancer and its precursor lesions.

Find more details from University of Rochester Medical Center.

[Photo Credit: URMC]

Post from: Blisstree

Cervical Cancer Vaccine To Undergo Evaluation

Now, an Australian study of under 150 Perth women included in a major international research at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research proved that the new Cervarix vaccine provides broader protection against cervical cancer because it also demonstrated additional protection against infectious from other strains of HPV that account for another 10 percent of cervical cancers.

According to co-author Dr Rachel Skinner, who headed the Perth trial:

“We have found through this study that this vaccine is extremely effective in the prevention of pre-cancerous disease of the cervix due to infection with HPV types 16 and 18.

However we now have evidence that Cervarix offers women broader protection by providing some protection against infections caused by HPV types 45 and 31. These types together with HPV types 16 and 18 account for 80 per cent of cases of cervical cancer worldwide.”

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration approved Cervarix™ last month (May 2007) for women aged 10-45 years, making it the first vaccine in Australia available for women over the age of 26 years.

The results of the said trial have been published yesterday in the prestigious international journal The Lancet.

Find more details from the full report.

Post from: Blisstree

GSK’s Cervarix™: A New, Broader Cervical Cancer Vaccine