Posted on Monday, November 15 2004 - 12:19 AM - In The News

An international clinical trial directed by Dr. Diane Harper of Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and Dartmouth Medical School has shown extremely promising results for a vaccine against the most common causes of cervical cancer. Writing in the lead article of this week's issue of The Lancet, Harper and co authors said the vaccine has the potential to greatly reduce deaths from cervical cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer mortality among women worldwide. The vaccine is targeted to immunize against two different types of high risk human papillomavirus (HPV-16 and HPV-18) that cause an estimated 70 percent of cervical cancer cases.

HPV is a commonly occurring infection, transmitted by skin to skin contact, most often through normal sexual interactions. Although most cases of HPV resolve themselves through natural immunity, a percentage of cases will progress to cervical cancer. Currently, an estimated 280,000 women die from cervical cancer each year, most of them in the developing world. Of the 500,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed annually, 70 percent are attributed to infection from HPV-16 and 18. The five-year prevalence of cervical cancer worldwide - in other words, the number of women in any five year period of time with cervical cancer - is 1.4 million.

In the blinded, randomized trial of 1,113 women from throughout the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, participants received three doses of the experimental vaccine or a placebo over six months. At 27 months of follow-up, the vaccine showed an extremely high rate of efficacy, the authors wrote. In those women who completed the protocol - receiving all three shots and participating in all scheduled testing and follow-up - the vaccine was 100 percent effective against persistent HPV16/18 infections.

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