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American Morning
Paging Dr. Gupta: Experimental Vaccine Raising Hopes Cervical Cancer Could be Prevented
Aired November 21, 2002 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among women, but now an experimental vaccine is raising some hope that it could be prevented.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta in town has more details on this study.
Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Second leading cause of cancer among women, cancer deaths as you say, and this cervical cancer typically caused, most cases caused by a virus, human papilloma virus 16 to be precise. Scientists, researcher for a long time have been trying to figure out ways not only to treat this, but to try to prevent this virus from causing all of the problems that it causes, in this case, the most devastating cause, cervical cancer. A couple of things about this, this virus gets into the body and reprograms cells. They don't know how to stop growing and that is how a tumor forms and how cervical cancer forms. This particular vaccine is experimental, but very promising so far, appears to be 100 percent effective in the thousands of women that were actually checked with this virus -- checked with this vaccine against preventing the virus from actually causing these problems.
ZAHN: It sounds great, but it's not going to be available for a while?
GUPTA: It's going to be about five years. And a couple of important points about that...
ZAHN: Why? Why do we have to wait?
GUPTA: The human papilloma virus is sort of a tricky virus. There are several different subtypes of this. This HPV 16 is the most troublesome one, causes the most cervical cancers, but there is also an 18, there is also a 31, a 33, a 45. I remembered all these numbers, but all these can possibly cause cervical cancer, sort of the Holy Grail of this, to try and prevent as many cervical cancers as possible, is to produce something called a multivalent vaccine. The name's not that important, but basically, what that would do is basically prevent all these different types of human papilloma virus from getting in and causing the problems. You can see some of the stats right up there.
ZAHN: What can they tell about the vaccine so far. So it can prevent cervical cancer? Can it prevent the HPV virus? GUPTA: Excellent question, because the way vaccines actually work are usually to prevent the consequences of the infection, to actually prevent the virus from causing this reprogramming of cells which leads to cervical cancer. When you think about cancer, you don't typically think about cancer being caused by an infection. We've seen this before with hepatitis B. We saw a dramatic decline in liver cancer after we started vaccinating. The same thing with this virus causing the cervical cancer. We are not getting rid of the virus totally, but we're getting rid of all these consequences, the most terrible consequence of course being the second leading cancer death in women.
ZAHN: I guess what I still don't get is if it's so promising in its initial studies on women, why it's going to take five years to roll this thing out.
GUPTA: When you think about these sorts of -- any kind of medication, vaccine, new drug or anything like that, you check to make sure that it works. You got to check to make sure that it's safe. You got to do large trials involving lots of women, both who are exposed to human papilloma virus and women who are not to try and find out just how efficacious it's going to be in the long term. We wouldn't be talking about this at all if this short-term study, the most recent study was not very promising. We got to make sure it's safe, we got to make sure it's something that can be widely available to the masses.
ZAHN: Now there is also talk about a vaccine for genital herpes. What's the status of that?
GUPTA: That's right, so we got two vaccine topics, two very different viruses, human papilloma virus, cause the cervical cancer, herpes simplex virus, causing genital warts. There's herpes simplex virus 2, to be specific. You can see some of the stats right up there. It affects one in five Americans. This virus stays in the body. There hasn't been a cure for this. There is still no cure for it, but there is a vaccine now possibly again, Paula, just tell you right now, not going to be available right away. It could be up to five years for this as well.
But this is also very exciting. What they found for women, only women, who have never been infected with either the herpes simplex virus 1, which gives the cold sores around the mouth, or herpes simplex virus 2, which can cause genital warts. If you've never been infected with that and you get this vaccine, women have about a 74 percent reduction in risk of getting the genetic herpes disease.
ZAHN: Oh gee, but they get to wait another five or six years before the vaccine comes out to prevent it.
GUPTA: It's hard to talk about. That's obviously not what people want to hear, but we're going to make sure it's safe, they're going to make sure that it works in a large percentage of people, and you know, interestingly about this virus, it doesn't work in men at all. You know what? We don't know why that is, and that's something that they will probably spend some of these next five years trying to figure out. It doesn't work in men, it doesn't work in women who have ever been infected before. The target population for this sort of vaccine would be young women who are about to become sexually active. That's who you're targeting with this vaccine, to make sure they don't get genital herpes. This is a virus that stays with you forever, if you do get it.
ZAHN: We hope they make some progress.
GUPTA: Absolutely. Me, too. We'll keep you posted.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Cervical Cancer Could be Prevented>
Aired November 21, 2002 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among women, but now an experimental vaccine is raising some hope that it could be prevented.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta in town has more details on this study.
Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Second leading cause of cancer among women, cancer deaths as you say, and this cervical cancer typically caused, most cases caused by a virus, human papilloma virus 16 to be precise. Scientists, researcher for a long time have been trying to figure out ways not only to treat this, but to try to prevent this virus from causing all of the problems that it causes, in this case, the most devastating cause, cervical cancer. A couple of things about this, this virus gets into the body and reprograms cells. They don't know how to stop growing and that is how a tumor forms and how cervical cancer forms. This particular vaccine is experimental, but very promising so far, appears to be 100 percent effective in the thousands of women that were actually checked with this virus -- checked with this vaccine against preventing the virus from actually causing these problems.
ZAHN: It sounds great, but it's not going to be available for a while?
GUPTA: It's going to be about five years. And a couple of important points about that...
ZAHN: Why? Why do we have to wait?
GUPTA: The human papilloma virus is sort of a tricky virus. There are several different subtypes of this. This HPV 16 is the most troublesome one, causes the most cervical cancers, but there is also an 18, there is also a 31, a 33, a 45. I remembered all these numbers, but all these can possibly cause cervical cancer, sort of the Holy Grail of this, to try and prevent as many cervical cancers as possible, is to produce something called a multivalent vaccine. The name's not that important, but basically, what that would do is basically prevent all these different types of human papilloma virus from getting in and causing the problems. You can see some of the stats right up there.
ZAHN: What can they tell about the vaccine so far. So it can prevent cervical cancer? Can it prevent the HPV virus? GUPTA: Excellent question, because the way vaccines actually work are usually to prevent the consequences of the infection, to actually prevent the virus from causing this reprogramming of cells which leads to cervical cancer. When you think about cancer, you don't typically think about cancer being caused by an infection. We've seen this before with hepatitis B. We saw a dramatic decline in liver cancer after we started vaccinating. The same thing with this virus causing the cervical cancer. We are not getting rid of the virus totally, but we're getting rid of all these consequences, the most terrible consequence of course being the second leading cancer death in women.
ZAHN: I guess what I still don't get is if it's so promising in its initial studies on women, why it's going to take five years to roll this thing out.
GUPTA: When you think about these sorts of -- any kind of medication, vaccine, new drug or anything like that, you check to make sure that it works. You got to check to make sure that it's safe. You got to do large trials involving lots of women, both who are exposed to human papilloma virus and women who are not to try and find out just how efficacious it's going to be in the long term. We wouldn't be talking about this at all if this short-term study, the most recent study was not very promising. We got to make sure it's safe, we got to make sure it's something that can be widely available to the masses.
ZAHN: Now there is also talk about a vaccine for genital herpes. What's the status of that?
GUPTA: That's right, so we got two vaccine topics, two very different viruses, human papilloma virus, cause the cervical cancer, herpes simplex virus, causing genital warts. There's herpes simplex virus 2, to be specific. You can see some of the stats right up there. It affects one in five Americans. This virus stays in the body. There hasn't been a cure for this. There is still no cure for it, but there is a vaccine now possibly again, Paula, just tell you right now, not going to be available right away. It could be up to five years for this as well.
But this is also very exciting. What they found for women, only women, who have never been infected with either the herpes simplex virus 1, which gives the cold sores around the mouth, or herpes simplex virus 2, which can cause genital warts. If you've never been infected with that and you get this vaccine, women have about a 74 percent reduction in risk of getting the genetic herpes disease.
ZAHN: Oh gee, but they get to wait another five or six years before the vaccine comes out to prevent it.
GUPTA: It's hard to talk about. That's obviously not what people want to hear, but we're going to make sure it's safe, they're going to make sure that it works in a large percentage of people, and you know, interestingly about this virus, it doesn't work in men at all. You know what? We don't know why that is, and that's something that they will probably spend some of these next five years trying to figure out. It doesn't work in men, it doesn't work in women who have ever been infected before. The target population for this sort of vaccine would be young women who are about to become sexually active. That's who you're targeting with this vaccine, to make sure they don't get genital herpes. This is a virus that stays with you forever, if you do get it.
ZAHN: We hope they make some progress.
GUPTA: Absolutely. Me, too. We'll keep you posted.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Cervical Cancer Could be Prevented>
