All of the women who received the first HPV vaccine in Finland 15 years ago are cancer-free, a new report claims.
The preliminary Finnish data are a huge endorsement for the shot, suggesting it is incredibly effective at preventing HPV-related disease.
It will also lend extra weight to arguments from US health officials that the vaccine could prevent at least 40,000 cancers which stem from the infection.
Human papillomavirus, the most common sexually-transmitted disease, is linked to scores of cancers, including penile, cervical, head, neck and throat cancers.
After more than a decade of policy and medical development, the vaccine is now provided to girls and boys from the age of 11 in the US, the UK, Australia and many other countries.
All the Finnish women who got the first HPV vaccine in 15 years ago are cancer-free. The report is a huge endorsement for the shot, suggesting it works at preventing HPV-related disease
Last year, figures from the CDC showed a dramatic climb in diagnoses of HPV-related cancers, all of which the agency explained were preventable.
An average of 39,000 cases were diagnosed each year between 2008 and 2012, the CDC reported.
That was a leap from 33,500 a year between 2002 and 2007.
Almost 80 percent of cases in the last five years were directly attributable to HPV, including 19,200 diagnoses for female and 11,600 for males.
The most common HPV-related diagnoses in women were cervical cancers.
For men, mouth and throat cancers were the most common.
The CDC estimates that more than 28,000 of these diagnoses could have been blocked by the HPV jab.
‘Full vaccination coverage of the U.S. population could prevent future HPV-attributable cancers and potentially reduce racial and ethnic disparities in HPV-associated cancer incidence,’ the authors wrote.
‘Ongoing surveillance for HPV-associated cancers using high-quality population-based registries is needed to monitor trends in cancer incidence that might result from increasing use of HPV vaccines and changes in cervical cancer screening practices.’
‘In order to increase HPV vaccination rates, we must change the perception of the HPV vaccine from something that prevents a sexually transmitted disease to a vaccine that prevents cancer,’ Electra Paskett, co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer, told Daily Mail Online.
She says there is clear evidence to show that increasing the number of vaccinations would dramatically reduce cancer rates – both in the US and across the globe.
‘Every parent should ask the question: If there was a vaccine I could give my child that would prevent them from developing six different cancers, would I give it to them?
‘The answer would be a resounding yes – and we would have a dramatic decrease in HPV-related cancers across the globe.’
The US government recommends that boys and girls get their first HPV jab at the age of 11 before they are exposed to the infection by having sex.
It consists of three shots spread over six months.
Catch-up jabs are then available for men up to the age of 21 and for women up to the age of 26.
In the UK, the vaccine is only offered to girls – a source of controversy since the infection is not gender specific.
The jab consists of two injections in the upper arm spread over six months.