In a rare coordinated effort, all 69 National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers issued a joint statement urging young adults, parents, and health care providers to take action to increase HPV vaccination rates for cancer prevention. The statement was published individually by each cancer center (a pdf version of the statement is available on The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center website: http://www.mdanderson.org/content/dam/mdanderson/documents/prevention-and-screen).
"Together we, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Centers, recognize these low rates of HPV vaccination as a serious public health threat. HPV vaccination represents a rare opportunity to prevent many cases of cancer that is tragically underused," the statement notes. "HPV vaccination is our best defense in stopping HPV infection in our youth and preventing HPV-related cancers in our communities. The HPV vaccine is CANCER PREVENTION."
Cancer centers serve patients and families affected by cancer, and therefore witness the tremendous suffering-emotional, physical, social, and financial-that a cancer diagnosis brings to patients and families on a daily basis, Ethan Hawk, MD, MPH, Vice President and Head of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, explained via email. "Nothing could be more motivating for prioritizing a preventive action than that.
"And with the effectiveness of HPV vaccines standing at greater than 90 percent effectiveness in blunting the subsequent development of HPV-related pre-cancers and cancers, we felt it was time for concerted action across the cancer centers enterprise to draw the public's and providers' attention to this huge missed opportunity in a new way."
How It Came About
Eighteen of the NCI-designated cancer centers had received supplemental NCI funding to do environmental assessments of their regional populations to understand why HPV vaccine uptake has been slow and establish plans to improve those vaccination rates. Representatives from those 18 centers, along with 18 other NCI centers, met in November at MD Anderson, in collaboration with the NCI and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for a summit meeting to exchange data and work together on the effort. The meeting also included representatives from the American Cancer Society.
"An emerging priority resulting from that meeting was for NCI-designated centers to jointly develop, promote, and publish a strong statement of HPV vaccine endorsement for cancer prevention together," Hawk said. Work has continued since November via a series of teleconferences and emails until the statement was issued last week, he said.
Rare Coordinated Effort for Population-Wide Impact
Concerted efforts have been made to implement new therapeutic strategies or argue for sustained Congressional support of research, Hawk said. "But we're not aware of a past similar effort to advance a specific action in cancer control with this degree of consensus, coordination, and intentional drive.
"[The NCI-designated cancer centers] work independently to bring the very best in each of those domains to serve their catchment area populations. However, they rarely work collectively in a coordinated and intentional effort involving cancer control to achieve population-wide impact.
"Hopefully, it is the first of many future efforts in collective action involving actions in cancer control to realize the potential of cancer prevention and health promotion across the population," Hawk said.
Representatives from several of the signing cancer centers were vocal about the purpose behind the statement.
"The collective voice of the nation's cancer centers sends a powerful message that this is a serious public health threat," Candace Johnson, PhD, President and CEO of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, said in a statement-Roswell Park being one of the 69 cancer center signatories. "Most HPV-related cancers are preventable through the administration of safe and effective vaccines. This joint statement sends a strong message to the medical community encouraging health care providers to recommend this cancer-preventing vaccine to their patients and their families."
In another statement, Lewis C. Cantley, PhD, the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, another NCI-designated, signing cancer center, added: "Vaccination is a highly effective weapon in the fight against cancer. ... While we are constantly developing new therapies for cancer patients, vaccination can help reduce the number of cases we ever have to treat."
Statement Details
The statement notes the latest HPV vaccination rates for girls and boys in the U.S.-40 percent and 21 percent, respectively-both of which fall far short of the goal of an 80 percent vaccination rate by the end of the decade, which was established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2020 mission. The statement summarizes the current CDC recommendations for HPV vaccination.
And the statement makes these three calls to action:
* Parents and guardians should have their sons and daughters complete the three-dose HPV vaccine before their 13th birthday, and as soon as possible in children 13 to 17;
* Young men (up to 21) and young women (up to 26) who were not vaccinated as preteens or teens should complete the three-dose HPV vaccine as soon as possible; and
* Health care providers should join forces to educate parents, guardians, and colleagues about the importance and benefit of HPV vaccination; and be advocates for cancer prevention by making a strong recommendation for childhood HPV vaccination.