Writing Exercise 2

In a scenario, as a healthcare professional, a college asks my opinions about which HPV strains should be covered in a new treatment. Based on the article “Viruses and Human Cancer: From Detection to Causality” by Sarid and Gao in 2011, my recommendation that HPV strains including HPVs 16, 18, 31 and 35 because of some reasons. First, HPVs 16,18,31, and 45 strains- high risk strains are accountable for 80% of cervical cancers. The high-risks strains are linked to anogenital cancer as well as other head and neck cancers related. Other HPVs strain such as 39, 51, 52, 56, 58, and 59 are associated to cervical caner and classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” or “possibly carcinogenic”. This means that these strains are related to cervical cancers but not casual agents. The questions I raised here is if “high risks” HPVs strains play 80% of cervical cancer cases, so the 20% left would belong to which strains. It may be strains 39,51,52,56,58, and 59, but the authors didn’t explain clearly. Instead, they counted these strains as associated agents to cervical cancers. We may need to conduct more researches about role of these strains. Beside, the cost to develop a vaccine for a strain is expensive, so the new treatment should be priority for high risk strains which are HPVs 31 and 35 due to their majority casual percentage in cervical cancer while other associated strains to cervical cancer

The treatment should be administered to both women around age of11-12. HPV which is a human virus is a representative of etiologic agent for cervical cancer, the third cause of mortalities and morbidities for women worldwide. Every year, there are around 12,000 women who are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 4,000 women die in the U.S The target of HPV vaccine is to prevent cervical cancer. The outcome of infection is related to cell cycle and body metabolism pathways, and women puberty starts around 11 which their body metabolism changes as well as cervix. Therefore, getting vaccine during puberty timeline is recommended for girls.

 

Source:

Sarid, Ronit, and Shou-Jiang Gao. 2011.  Viruses and human cancer: from detection to causality. Cancer letters. 305.2:218-227.

“HPV Vaccine Information For Young Women.” Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Dec. 2016. Web. 14 Apr. 2017. <https://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/stdfact-hpv-vaccine-young-women.htm>.

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