If I were a healthcare professional and had to decide which HPV strains should be included in a new treatment I would include all of the high-risk strains; HPVs 16, 18, 31, and 45. There are so many strains of HPV out there but these four strains account for about 80% of cervical cancer. It is cost inefficient to include all strains in the treatment especially since HPVs 16 and 18 are the novel and most common strains that cause the most cases of genital warts. My biggest concern as a healthcare provider is to make sure we have the best disease coverage possible but also be as cost efficient as possible. Additionally, I want to ensure that we can prevent genital warts from becoming malignant, and these four strains have been identified as carcinogenic strains causing ~80% of cervical cancer, while many other strains are “probable” or “possibly carcinogenic” and covering them in our treatment could be a huge waste of resources. The goal is to prevent spread of genital warts from HPV acquisition as well as prevent people from getting cancer from this virus and the most effective way to do that is cover the most common strains as well as the strains linked to cancer. The treatment should be administered sometime in the 10-12 age range so that the patients are fully protected for years before they become sexually active and have the antibodies for these virus strains come the time they choose to become active.
