A new human papillomavirus vaccine can potentially prevent 80 per cent of cervical cancers in the US if given to all 11- or 12-year-old children before they are exposed to the virus, scientists have found.
The study found that the new 9-Valent HPV vaccine, which includes seven cancer causing HPV-types has the potential to protect against nearly 19,000 other cancers diagnosed in the US, including anal, oropharyngeal and penile cancers.
This is a 13 per cent increase in protection against HPV-related cancers in comparison to the first vaccines on the market, Gardasil and Cervarix, researchers said.
The findings come from a seven-center study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and conducted by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Cedars-Sinai.
"This is the first comprehensive study of its kind and shows the potential to not only reduce the global cancer burden, but also guide clinical decision-making with regard to childhood vaccinations," said Marc T Goodman, senior author of the study and director of Cancer Prevention and Genetics at the Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute.
The study found the 9-Valent vaccine, under the trademark of Gardasil-9, also has the potential to protect against an additional 8 per cent of oropharyngeal cancers, which include the base of the tongue and tonsils.
This disease is the second-most-common HPV-associated cancer.
"We found that 70 per cent of patient DNA tissue samples with cancer of the oropharynx harboured HPV," said Goodman.
"This is a much higher percentage of HPV than observed in other studies, likely because of changes in sexual behaviours, such as increased oral-genital contact," Goodman said.
The 9-Valent vaccine was also found to potentially increase protection from other HPV-related cancers including those of the vulva, from 71 to 92 per cent; vagina, from 73 per cent to 98 per cent; the penis, 76 per cent to 90 per cent; and the anus, 87 per cent to 96 per cent.
To compile these data, researchers examined 2,670 HPV DNA tissue samples from seven population-based cancer registries.
