Last month, the Food and Drug Administration broadened the age range for those who can receive the human papillomavirus vaccine.
The age range used to be for minors through age 26, but the vaccine is now also approved for ages 27 to 45. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause genital warts and cancers of the vulva, anus, penis and areas of the throat. The virus has more than 100 strains, most of which don’t cause cancer or warts.
Most adults encounter at least one strain at some point. The vaccine protects against nine strains, which are more likely to cause cancer or genital warts. The nine strains that Gardasil 9, the vaccine available in the U.S., guards against cause about 90 percent of cervical cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.
“A lot of public health officials and gynecologists call it ‘the common cold of STDs,’ ” said Dr. Cynthia McNally, an OB-GYN who runs Evergreen Gynecology in Vancouver.
The approval came because of a study that showed an earlier version of the vaccine for women ages 27 to 45 was particularly effective in preventing warts and cancers connected to HPV. The vaccine can’t rid someone of an HPV strain if they’ve contracted it, but can still protect against the other strains it’s targeted for.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website states the vaccine “works extremely well.”
“In the four years after the vaccine was recommended in 2006 in the United States, quadrivalent type HPV infections in teen girls decreased by 56 percent and decreases in prevalence have also been observed in women in their early 20s,” the website reads.
Research has also discovered fewer teens are contracting genital warts since HPV vaccines have been used in the U.S. It’s still recommended that people get the vaccine at a younger age before they become sexually active.
According to The New York Times, another reason for the broadened age range is that men and women older than 26 were frequently asking about the vaccine after leaving marriages or monogamous relationships. Since those people wanted to date again and have new sexual partners, it made sense to expand the vaccine’s range.
McNally said she encounters patients with HPV fairly frequently. While HPV is the most common STD in the U.S., it doesn’t necessarily have the same name recognition as gonorrhea or chlamydia, in part, because it’s harder to detect, McNally said, and also because most of the time it doesn’t cause noticeable symptoms.
“There are no symptoms,” McNally said. “Even a routine STD screening is not going to pick up HPV. It’s really prevalent and almost impossible to detect until it causes changes like precancerous changes.”
A pap test and an HPV test are the preferred way to discover early cervical caners or pre-cancers in women 30 and older, according to the American Cancer Society.
The vaccine requires a series of shots. While the vaccine is covered by insurance for ages 11 through 26, and under the federal Vaccines for Children program, it is still not covered by most insurances for ages 27 through 45.
According to The New York Times, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has been discussing the data on using the vaccine in older people. The committee is expected to make a recommendation to the CDC on the vaccine soon, which could result in the vaccine becoming either becoming universal, where everyone in the age range should receive it or, “permissive,” where doctors and patients decide.
Insurers generally cover vaccines that the committee recommends.
