Department of Biochemistry, AIIMS, New Delhi - 110 029
*Correspondence to: Neeta Singh, E-mail: singh_neeta@hotmail.com
Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancer and is a leading cause of cancer related death in women. Sexually transmitted human papilloma viruses (HPVs) play a central role in its etiology. There are more than 100 different HPV types. 38 types infect the genital tract, fall into 2 categories - low risk and high risk types. High risk HPV-16 is detected in 50–60% of cervical cancer followed by HPV-18 (10–12%). HPV vaccines, both prophylactic and therapeutic are in Phase III and Phase II clinical trials respectively. Prophylactic vaccines against HPV-16 and 18 induce the generation of neutralizing antibody to the virus coat protein and have shown promising results but will be effective pre-exposure to virus. Therapeutic vaccines are aimed at eliminating existing infection by induction of a strong cell mediated response. However, the unanswerable questions are how well a prophylactic vaccine will be accepted and how extensive the coverage will be?
