Cervical Cancer

THE KEY to cancer research - and finding a cure - is identifying cancer's Achilles' heel, argues Dr. Eliav Barr, senior director of clinical research at Merck Research Laboratories in West Point, Montgomery County. And when it comes to cervical cancer, that's exactly what he has done. Since 1995, Barr and his team of Merck researchers have been working to develop a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer. Now in its third clinical trial, the vaccine is scheduled to go to the Food and Drug Administration for approval later this year, a process that takes from 10 to 12 months.

There's more news on cancer screening tests - this time for women. Scientists advising the government say a Pap test is a good way to screen young and middle-aged women for cervical cancer, and it's needed only once every three years. But they say there is not enough evidence yet to back testing for HPV, the virus that causes the disease. That's at odds with the American Cancer Society and other groups, which have long said that both tests can be an option for women over 30. Those groups and the government advisory task force separately plan to release proposed new guidelines for cervical cancer screening on Wednesday and invite public comment.

The Food and Drug Administration has delivered an important victory for girls and women in the fight against cervical cancer. In a decision late last week, the FDA approved the sale of the first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, which claims the lives of 3,900 women in the United States annually. The new drug, Gardasil, is manufactured by Merck & Co. and is expected to cost more than $300 for a three-shot course. Gardasil kills two strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV)

Sex can give you cancer. Well, not exactly. But a specific sexually transmitted disease - human papillomavirus (HPV) - has been found to cause cervical cancer. That being the case, one would think a new vaccine that prevents cervical cancer would be universally hailed. But the fact that the drug is most effective when administered to children has made it controversial. Some family values groups worried that promiscuity might increase if adolescents knew they'd been vaccinated to ward off a sexually transmitted disease.

CHICAGO - Provocative new research might help explain why black women are so much more likely than white women to develop and die of cervical cancer. They seem to have more trouble clearing HPV, the virus that causes the disease. Doctors have long thought that less access to screening and follow-up health care were the reasons black women are 40 percent more likely than white women to develop cervical cancer and twice as likely to die from it. The new study involving young college women suggests that there might be a biological explanation for the racial disparity, too. If further study confirms this novel finding, it would make the HPV vaccine even more important for black women, said Worta McCaskill-Stevens, a prevention specialist at the National Cancer Institute.

A long-sought dream - a vaccine to eradicate most cases of deadly cervical cancer worldwide - moved closer to realization yesterday with Merck & Co. Inc.'s announcement that short-term studies had shown its drug to be 100 percent effective in combating the virus that causes the disease. The studies, which tested Merck's Gardasil vaccine for six months on more than 12,000 women in 13 countries, are the most important clinical trial toward gaining Food and Drug Administration approval later this year.

Still more evidence that sex with many partners can have lethal consequences: Recent medical studies have linked another dangerous virus - passed silently between partners - to a disease that can kill. Several strains of human papilloma virus (HPV) have been identified as a cause of women's cancers of the cervix, vagina and vulva and as a possible cause of cancer of the penis in men and anal cancer in gay men, researchers say. The link to cervical cancer is strongest: HPV infection is found in about 90 percent of patients who develop precancerous cervical changes, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

WASHINGTON - Too many doctors are testing the wrong women, or using the wrong test, for a virus that causes cervical cancer. The days of one-size-fits-all screening for cervical cancer are long gone. How often to get a Pap smear - and whether to be tested for the cancer-causing virus HPV at the same time - depend on your age and other circumstances. But a study reported Monday that a surprising number of doctors and clinics aren't following guidelines from major medical groups, suggesting that a lot of women are getting unnecessary tests.

Health providers hoping to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer among Asian women are contending with a foe as tenacious as the disease: tradition. National Cancer Institute statistics show that the cancer is five times more common among Vietnamese women than white women because many are reluctant to get tested for this highly preventable disease. Surveys show Asian women have lower cancer screening rates, and a significant number of Korean Americans have never heard of the Pap test - which has decreased cervical cancer deaths by 75 percent in recent years.

Two major pharmaceutical companies are racing to market the world's first cervical cancer vaccines. But at least a year before the drugs become available, conservative and liberal groups are fighting over the propriety of giving vaccines against a sexually transmitted disease to children as young as 9 or 10. Merck & Co.'s Gardasil and Cervarix from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) prevent infection by two strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), which cause most cases of cervical cancer.

CHICAGO - Provocative new research might help explain why black women are so much more likely than white women to develop and die of cervical cancer. They seem to have more trouble clearing HPV, the virus that causes the disease. Doctors have long thought that less access to screening and follow-up health care were the reasons black women are 40 percent more likely than white women to develop cervical cancer and twice as likely to die from it. The new study involving young college women suggests that there might be a biological explanation for the racial disparity, too. If further study confirms this novel finding, it would make the HPV vaccine even more important for black women, said Worta McCaskill-Stevens, a prevention specialist at the National Cancer Institute.

In early 1994, some University of Pennsylvania oncologists launched a website with cancer information for professionals, patients, and the public. OncoLink.org's creators weren't just early adopters; they were pioneers. The Internet was in its infancy, with painfully slow dial-up access, primitive search engines - and not much for those engines to find. Even the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and dot-coms such as WebMD and Medscape would take another year or two to establish a Web presence.

The more red meat you eat, the greater your disease risk Eating red meat is associated with a sharply increased risk of death from cancer and heart disease, according to a new study, and the more of it you eat, the greater the risk. The analysis, published online in Archives of Internal Medicine, used data from two studies that involved 121,342 men and women who filled out questionnaires about health and diet from 1980 through 2006. People who ate more red meat were less physically active and more likely to smoke and had a higher body mass index, researchers found.

Researchers identified 37 scenarios when commonly ordered medical tests do no good and may even cause harm. Cost was not considered. Value - the extent to which benefits outweigh harms - was the key. But patients are encouraged to go beyond this list and ask questions about any ordered test. The following are in no particular order: Repeating screening ultrasonography for abdominal aortic aneurysm following a negative study. Performing coronary angiography in patients with chronic stable angina with well-controlled symptoms on medical therapy or who lack specific high-risk criteria on exercise testing.

Annual cancer tests are becoming a thing of the past. New guidelines out Wednesday for cervical cancer screening have experts at odds over some things, but they are united in the view that the common practice of getting a Pap test every year is too often and probably doing more harm than good. A Pap smear once every three years is the best way to detect cervical cancer, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says. Last week, it recommended against prostate cancer screening with PSA tests, which many men get every year.

There's more news on cancer screening tests - this time for women. Scientists advising the government say a Pap test is a good way to screen young and middle-aged women for cervical cancer, and it's needed only once every three years. But they say there is not enough evidence yet to back testing for HPV, the virus that causes the disease. That's at odds with the American Cancer Society and other groups, which have long said that both tests can be an option for women over 30. Those groups and the government advisory task force separately plan to release proposed new guidelines for cervical cancer screening on Wednesday and invite public comment.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Texas Gov. Rick Perry came under fire on his immigration record during a televised Republican presidential debate Thursday for opposing a fence along the Mexico border and for allowing the children of undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at Texas universities. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said that policy amounted to a $100,000 discount not available to citizens from 49 other states to go to the prestigious University of Texas at Austin.

Bioethicist Art Caplan said his challenge to Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann for proof that a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer caused mental retardation ended without Bachmann acknowledging it. Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, offered to pay $10,000 to a charity of Bachmann's choice if she could find such a person by noon Thursday. Bachman said in television interviews on Sept. 13 that a woman told her that the shot, usually given at age 12, triggered mental retardation in the woman's daughter.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Texas Gov. Rick Perry came under fire on immigration issues during a televised Republican presidential debate Thursday night for opposing a fence along the Mexico border and for a program that grants in-state tuition at universities to the children of illegal immigrants. Mitt Romney said that policy amounted to a $100,000 discount not available to citizens from 49 other states to attend the prestigious University of Texas at Austin. "That makes no sense," the former Massachusetts governor said.