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Cervical Cancer Vaccine Makes More Sense For Younger Women

Posted on: Thursday, 21 August 2008, 09:20 CDT

A new report claims that costly cervical cancer vaccines are less-cost effective for women in their 20s than they are for young teens.

Merck & Co’s Gardasil vaccine protects young women against the HPV virus, and has been approved for use in those aged 9 to 26.

Doctors recommend Gardasil to girls at age 11 or 12, and some doctors offer it to women in their 20s.

Merck and Co. would like to be able to market it to women ages 27 to 45, but so far the U.S. Food and Drug Administration won’t allow it.

The government-funded study was conducted by two researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. Their findings are published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Gardasil is given in three doses over six months and costs about $375. It targets the two types of HPV, or human papillomavirus, believed to be responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases, and two other types that cause most genital warts. The virus spreads through sex.

Health officials say it's best to give the shots to girls at age 11 or 12, before they begin having sex. Some parents think that age is too young for a vaccination campaign against a sexually transmitted disease.

Researchers found that girls and younger women get more for their money by being vaccinated earlier.

They used computer models to predict the health outcomes of vaccinated girls and women.

To determine cost-effectiveness, the researchers used widely accepted economic measures of how much society is willing to pay to extend the life of a person by a year. They set a figure of $43,600 per year for the Gardasil vaccination of each 12-year-old girl, well below the $100,000 mark seen as an upper range for cost-effectiveness.

That assumes the vaccine gives lifetime protection - something doctors don't know is true, because the shot is too new.

"Their base-case assumptions are quite optimistic," wrote Dr. Charlotte Haug, a Norwegian physician, in an editorial that accompanies the study.”

Vaccinating "catch-up" campaigns for women in their 20's, however, would not be cost-effective, the researchers said. They didn't calculate cost-effectiveness of vaccinating women ages 27 to 45, but a trend seems clear, said Jane Kim, the study's lead author.

"As you get older, the vaccine becomes less cost-effective," she said.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC has developed another HPV vaccine, called Cervarix, which it sells in other countries. That vaccine has not yet been approved for the U.S. market.

Image Courtesy Merck Frosst Canada Ltd.

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On the Net:

• New England Journal
• Gardasil

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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