Who should get the HPV vaccine?
Doctors recommend this vaccine for 11- and 12-year-old girls. The vaccine also can be given to girls and women ages 13 through 26 who did not get the vaccine when they were younger or who did not complete the vaccination series. Ideally, girls/women should get this vaccine before their first sexual contact when they could be exposed to HPV. This is because the vaccine prevents disease in girls/women who have not previously acquired one or more types of HPV prevented by the vaccine. It does not work as well for those who were exposed to the virus before getting the vaccine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of Merck’s vaccine, Gardasil, for girls and young women age 9-26. However, the vaccine has not been shown to be effective in protecting women who already have been exposed to the four targeted types of the virus (two that can cause cervical cancer and two that cause genital warts). Thus, it is best to get vaccinated before a woman’s first sexual relationship. A note about men: Males get HPV too and can pass the virus to women. However, the FDA has not approved the use of Gardasil for boys or men. There are currently no data demonstrating that the vaccine can protect them from getting genital warts or developing HPV-related cancers (such as cancer of the penis, which is rare), or that it can prevent transmission of the virus to women.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection of the cervix can lead to cervical cancer. A vaccine designed to prevent cervical cancer and other diseases caused by infection with HPVs was approved for use in the U.S. in June 2006. This is the first vaccine to be developed against a known risk factor for the development of a cancer. While some HPV types infect the skin and cause benign warts and other lesions, about 40 types of HPVs can infect the genital tract. Genital HPV infection is very common in the general population; estimates suggest that up to 50% of all sexually active people will be infected at some point in their lives. In the majority of cases, the infection does not cause any symptoms, but in some women, HPV infection can progress to cause precancerous and cancerous lesions of the uterine cervix. HPVs that infect the genital area are also associated with other less common genital cancers in men and women such as cancers of the anus, vagina, penis, and vulva. HPV infection also cau
