STD Awareness: Eliminating HPV-Related Cancers

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Anna C.

Earlier this month, every major cancer center and organization in the country released a joint statement calling for the elimination of cervical cancer, along with all other HPV-related cancers. The elimination of a large swath of cancers might sound like a tall order — so far, we’ve only eradicated two viruses from the planet: smallpox and rinderpest. And we’re on the brink of getting rid of a third, the virus that causes polio.

But doing away with human papillomavirus (HPV) would herald a new chapter in disease eradication, because HPV causes cancer, meaning that eradicating HPV will eradicate the cancers caused by it. And the good news is we have all the tools we need to wipe HPV off the face of the earth — we just need to use them.

The tools to wipe a large class of cancers off the face of the earth are right under our noses — we just have to use them.

A quick rundown on HPV is in order. It’s the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world, and causes multiple cancers — cervical, head and neck, anal, vulvar, vaginal, and penile. While it’s most well-known for causing cervical cancer, here in the United States it is transitioning away from its old job, causing more head-and-neck cancers than cervical cancers. Nearly all sexually active people will be infected with HPV at least once in their lives, and though only a fraction of infections progress to cancer, its ubiquity means it still causes hundreds of thousands of cancers every year. In the United States, around 41,000 HPV-related cancers are diagnosed annually, while more than 600,000 are diagnosed worldwide. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Anna C.

For the past decade, human papillomavirus, better known as HPV, has been a pretty consistent headline grabber. Formerly a little-discussed virus, HPV was catapulted into the public consciousness in 2006, when suddenly people were all aflutter about this cancer-causing sexually transmitted pathogen, as well as Gardasil, the three-shot vaccination series the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was recommending to preteen girls as protection from cervical cancer.

Kids 14 and younger develop such a strong immune response to Gardasil that they only need two doses — not three!

Dialogue has evolved since then, as people have recognized that HPV causes more than just cervical cancer — including anal cancer, head-and-neck cancer, and penile cancer — meaning that all children should be vaccinated, not just girls. And fears that the vaccine will “encourage” promiscuity still abound, despite thorough scientific debunking. In fact, many experts believe that our skittishness surrounding sexuality — especially when it comes to teenagers — causes parents to turn a blind eye to the importance of vaccinating their children against HPV. (Unvaccinated children might not appreciate their parents’ choice, if, say, a few years down the line they find a smattering of genital warts below their belts.)

Ongoing scientific research into Gardasil and the virus it protects against provides continuous fodder for journalists covering medical and scientific advances. Here are just a few of the most recent headlines featuring HPV:

The vaccine has cut the cervical cancer rate in half over the past 10 years, with many experts optimistic that within our lifetimes we’ll rid the planet of HPV-associated cancers.
Women who were vaccinated as preteens could receive less frequent Pap tests — every five years for those who received the first-generation version of Gardasil, and every 10 years for those who received Gardasil 9.
Compared to women, men run four times the risk of acquiring HPV-associated head-and-neck cancer, underscoring the need to vaccinate boys as well.
Still, too few preteens and adolescents are receiving the vaccine, prompting recommendations that doctors frame it to patients as a cancer vaccine rather than prevention for an STD.
Genetic analysis has found that HPV-16, the strain responsible for the majority of cervical and anal cancers, was given to our species by Neanderthals around 60,000 years ago. Thanks a lot, guys!

Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Gardasil and Males

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Anna C.

It’s Men’s Health Month, and yesterday was the last day of Men’s Health Week, which means we’re going to look at a men’s health issue that is usually ignored: the impact of human papillomavirus (HPV) on the male population.

You’ve probably heard of HPV in discussions about cervical cancer and Pap testing. But HPV doesn’t care about gender, and is perfectly content to invade cells in anyone’s genital tract, mouth, throat, or anus. In males, HPV can cause genital warts as well as anal, oropharyngeal (mouth and throat), and penile cancers.

HPV will cause more oral cancer than cervical cancer by 2020.

The good news is that most HPV infections can be prevented by a vaccine called Gardasil, and you don’t need to be female to get it. However, few males are actually getting the HPV vaccine: In 2012, 20.8 percent of U.S. males 13 to 17 years of age had received at least one dose of the HPV vaccine, but only 6.8 percent completed the three-dose series.

Gardasil Is for Everybody: Good News from Australia

This huge disparity in promoting Gardasil to female patients rather than male patients has real-world consequences. In Australia, girls have been vaccinated with Gardasil since 2007, covered by their national health system. Four years into the program, genital wart rates fell by 93 percent in females less than 21 years of age. Even though males weren’t being routinely immunized, genital wart rates fell by 82 percent among heterosexual males in the same age group. That’s because their female partners had received the vaccine, which had the effect of protecting much of the male population. That might sound pretty nifty, but the female-only vaccination policy left out gay and bisexual males, whose genital wart rates saw no corresponding decline. Continue reading →