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The value of HPV vaccination

Nature Medicine volume 18, pages 28–29 (2012)Cite this article

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Persistent infection with high-risk types of human papillomavirus (HPV) causes almost all cervical cancers. Two HPV vaccines have been licensed for prophylactic vaccination in many countries and have been highly effective at preventing infection by the vaccine-targeted HPV types. Two recent papers describe the four-year, end-of-study data from a large-scale trial of Cervarix, a vaccine that targets the most prevalent oncogenic HPV types 16 and 18, in women aged 15–25 years 1, 2 . The results indicate that the vaccine has high efficacy against cervical precancer development and is cross protective against nonvaccine oncogenic HPV types. We asked four experts to comment on this trial and the implications for vaccination and cervical cancer screening policies.

Jane Kim

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Competing interests

K.K.S.-M. is on the scientific and clinical advisory board and has stock options for OncoHealth, a company developing diagnostic tests for cervical cancer screening. D.R.L. is an inventor on US government–owned human papilloma virus vaccine patents that are licensed to Glaxo-Smith Kline and Merck and is entitled to limited royalties as specified by law. C.J.M.M. is chief scientific officer of ISA Pharmaceuticals. This company develops synthetic therapeutic vaccines. In theory, such vaccines can also possess preventive activity, although no preventive activity against HPV16 or HPV18 has been shown by ISA.

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The value of HPV vaccination. Nat Med 18, 28–29 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0112-28

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