As a healthcare professional, a colleague asks your opinion as to which HPV strains should be covered in a new treatment.
Cancer is a term which still strikes fear in the hearts and minds of most people diagnosed with it and even those who aren’t, but I don’t think anyone with cervical cancer would align themselves with groups fighting lung cancer, pancreatic cancer or colon cancer. While the commonality which exists because they are also a form of cancer there is a significant difference. That difference is the fact that cervical cancer, unlike the other cancers mentioned, is the result of a virus – human papillomavirus (HPV).
As a medical professional I would recommend a round of vaccines that cover strains of HPVs 16, 18, 31 and 45 first because these strains are known to account for up to 80% of cervical cancer(1.) This would be the most cost effective strains to cover given that one vaccine can’t cover all the strains of HPV. The other strains of cancer causing HPV arnt as high risk as these first few so as a medical professional I would only recommend the round of vaccines that cover HPVs 16, 18, 31 and 45 if looking at just cost. If cost wasn’t a issue I would recommend HPV vaccine for all the strains across the board just to be safe.
Low risk HPV’s usually are not carcinogenic but can cause genital warts. For example, HPV types 6 and 11 cause 90% of all genital warts. HPV types 6 and 11 also cause recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a disease in which benign tumors grow in the air passages leading from the nose and mouth into the lungs.(2.) HPV infections are the most common sexual transmitted infection in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that more than 90% and 80%, respectively, of sexually active men and women will be infected with at least one type of HPV at some point in their lives. This is a scary number because around half of all these infections are high risk HPV’s that are known to be carcinogenic.
As a medical professional I would recommend that if you have access to get these vaccines you do so. This is to ensure that you have a lower risk of getting cancer associated with HPV if you are ever exposed which most likely you will be at some point in our life.
(1.) Sarid R, Gao S-J. 2011. Viruses and Human Cancer: From Detection to Causality. Cancer Lett 218–227.
(2.) Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccines. National Cancer Institute.
