Vaccine for cervical cancer promising

WASHINGTON - A vaccine may work to protect women against a virus that causes most cervical cancer cases, US researchers say.

So far the vaccine seemed to have protected women from precancerous changes for three years, said the team at Merck and Co.

This vaccine does not work broadly enough to be developed as a commercial product, but Merck is working on a more advanced vaccine based on the same approach, the researchers said this week at a meeting sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology.

"This is a very important issue for women's health round the world," said Dr Scott Hammer, of New York's Columbia University, who helped to put together the conference.

Globally, cervical cancer affects 500,000 women a year and kills 300,000, most in developing countries.

The vaccine is designed to prevent infection by human wart virus - specifically a strain called human papilloma virus 16, or HPV 16, which causes genital warts and 50 per cent of cervical cancer cases.

Dr Eliav Barr, of Merck, and colleagues tested nearly 2400 women, giving some the vaccine and some a placebo shot.

"This vaccine has already been shown to prevent or lower the incidence of infection," said Dr Barr.

His team reported this finding in 2002. Of 775 women vaccinated, only seven showed evidence of HPV infection, and that was in the last months of the three-year study. But among the women getting a dummy shot, 111 became infected.

More important is whether the infection led to the changes that show the beginning of cancer.

Dr Barr said there were more than 35 HPV types.

- REUTERS