Cervical cancer virus thwarted

19 November 2004

Every year cervical cancer kills over a quarter of a million women worldwide. Now trials of a new vaccine called Cervarix show it will protect women against the virus that causes 70-per-cent of these cancers.

Antenna asks, can a vaccine conquer cancer?

Image: INMR

Cervical cancer occurs when cells in the neck of the womb start growing abnormally. A virus called HPV - transmitted by genital contact - is almost always to blame.
Up to eight in ten people, both men and women, will be infected with HPV at some point in their lives. You may not know you have it because there are usually no symptoms.
Now scientists have trialled a vaccine that stops infection with HPV, so preventing cervical cancer. In tests, the jabs gave fully vaccinated women total protection against the two types of HPV blamed for 70-per-cent of cervical cancer.

How does the new vaccine work?
'There is no active virus in the vaccine at all. The outside coat tricks the human body into thinking there is an infection, and it mounts an immune response making antibodies that protect all of the human body parts from being infected with this type of HPV.'
Diane Harper, vaccine researcher, Dartmouth Medical School, USA
'This research is promising and could result in almost completely preventing cervical cancer. The vaccine may even eventually mean the end of smear testing. But it is early days and the vaccine is still being researched. It will not be available for a few years.'
Anne Szarewski, Cancer Research UK

Anne Szarewski, Cancer Research UK

Image: Cancer Research UK

Today, screening programmes for cervical cancer help to catch the disease early. An estimated 5000 lives are saved in the UK each year by offering all women aged 25 to 64 free smear tests to check for abnormal cells.
If young women received the new vaccine before they became sexually active, smear tests would be needed only once or twice in a lifetime.
'The vaccine is not expected to replace current cervical cancer screening programs. Combining the introduction of a vaccine at an early age with screening beginning at the age of 25 is the most effective way to reduce the absolute lifetime risk of having cervical cancer.'
Samantha Christey, GlaxoSmithKline
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