Sticking it to Cancer
A new vaccine, amazingly, may rid the world of cervical cancer, while doctors aim other needles at more killer tumors
A prick against the skin of her upper arm, a quick injection, and Janelle Kitson was protected against a scourge of women: cervical cancer. "It's just like any regular shot, like a flu shot, and people should really take advantage of it," says the 26-year-old from Seattle, who got the needle five years ago as part of a clinical study to see if it works. "I used to tutor some kids, and I think one of the moms had this cancer. She was going through chemotherapy, and it was pretty tough on her."
Kitson now has a good chance to avoid that fate. The shot she got was a vaccine against the human papilloma virus, or HPV. Two types of this virus cause 70 percent of all cervical cancers, which kill 270,000 women worldwide each year, nearly 4,000 of them in the United States. Remarkably, the vaccine prevents infection from these two types 100 percent of the time.
That number has doctors cheering wildly. "It's been a jaw-dropping experience to see protection like this," says Kevin Ault, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. "Look, I analyzed data from 20,000 patients from five different continents. And we saw complete effectiveness against lesions that could become cancer," says Ault. "When this vaccine is approved, my oldest daughter, who is 9 now, is going to get it."
This is a historic moment: the first real attempt to wipe a cancer off the face of the planet. And in June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will play a crucial role in that act of extinction. That's when the agency is set to decide whether to approve the vaccine, called Gardasil and made by drug giant Merck. While approval isn't an absolute slam-dunk, there are few who doubt it will happen. "The data presented to us look very strong," says Janet Gilsdorf, a University of Michigan pediatric infectious disease doctor and a member of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is working on recommendations about who should get vaccinated and at what age. The anticancer effort is also going global: A second, similar vaccine from rival Glaxo Smith Kline, called Cervarix, was just submitted for approval in the European Union and several other countries three weeks ago. It's headed for the FDA later this year.
Living longer. There are more cancers poised at the tip of the vaccine needle, too. These medications don't prevent cancer from starting but attack tumors that already exist, vanquishing them or at least stopping their lethal growth. One such therapeutic vaccine medication recently showed success against advanced prostate cancer, and it appears to extend patients' lives longer than the best current therapy. Though other researchers worry the studies might be too small to prove anything, the manufacturer intends to seek FDA approval later this year. A different technique--infusing a patient with billions of cancer-killing cells--has also shown some promise in experiments.
What all these cutting-edge treatments have in common is a rejuvenated immune system, ready to stop a deadly foe. In the case of the new cervical cancer vaccine, it works because of the tight link between the cancer and HPV. DNA analysis has revealed that about 15 types of the virus account for more than 99 percent of all cervical cancer cases and that the virus can hijack cervical cells and turn them into growing malignancies. Other types are responsible for another problem, one afflicting men as well as women: genital warts.
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