After reading the section of the article by Sarid and Gao (2011) about HPV, if I was a healthcare professional looking to develop treatments I would work toward treating HPV31 and HPV45. While HPV16 and HPV18 were first discovered and seem to be more deadly, all four types cause up to 80% of cervical cancer cases according to Harald zur Hausen, a scientist who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for his work on HPV.
HPV16 and 18 already have a vaccine that has been developed to fight the viruses off, so expanding the treatment options to also cover HPV 31 and 45 could possibly begin to eradicate HPV as a cause of cervical cancer. The vaccines for HPV that already exist are relatively new, so I’m not sure what kind of data exists yet as to how successful it has been in decreasing numbers of cervical cancer in regions that have implemented the vaccine into the lives of women.
A vaccine for the other two deadliest strains could be immensely helpful in lowering the numbers of women who get this horrible disease. It should be administered early in a woman’s developed life (post puberty) once she becomes “at risk” for cervical cancer. By eliminating all four of these strains, the numbers for cervical cancer can possibly go down tremendously. Overall, the ability to cease up to 80% of cervical cancer cases, in my opinion, would outweigh the costs of developing a new vaccine for these two strains.
