HPV Vaccine May Protect Women Against Throat Cancer: Study

Young women who are vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV) not only protected from cervical cancer, but from throat cancer as well, a new study suggests.

The study found that from over a group 6,000 women who participated, those who got vaccinated against two strains of the virus had 93 percent fewer HPV throat infections four years later.

Two HPV vaccines are already approved for prevention of cancer of the uterine cervix in women, and prevention of genital warts and anal cancer in men. The study, published in the journal PLoS One, involved one of the vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix.  That makes the vaccine 93 percent effective against oral HPV infection.

"We found the women who had the HPV vaccine had much less infection than the women who hadn't," said lead researcher Dr. Rolando Herrero, at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France.

"In fact, there was a 90 percent reduction in the prevalence of HPV infection in the women who received the vaccine compared to the women who had not," he said.

HPV infection is strongly tied with throat cancer. "We think that it is possible that the prevention of the infection will also lead to the prevention of these cancers," he explained.

The HPV vaccine has enormous benefit, said Herrero, "because of the cervical cancer prevention and the anal cancer prevention, and it can even prevent infections in their sexual partners."

According to the Oral Cancer Foundation, nearly 42,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral and throat cancer in 2013, and more than 8,000 people will die from these conditions.

The study was performed in Costa Rica, with funding from the U.S.' National Cancer Institute. The study scientists came from institutes in Europe, the U.S. and Costa Rica. GlaxoSmithKline donated the vaccine for the study.