PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

HPV vaccines for adults over age 26 may not be cost-effective

2021-03-11
(Press-News.org) Boston, MA - Vaccinating adults age 26 and older against the human papillomavirus (HPV)--the virus that causes more than 90% of cervical cancers as well as several other cancers--may not be cost-effective, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard T.H. School of Public Health.

"Our study found that the added health benefit of increasing the vaccination age limit beyond 26 years is minimal, and that the cost-effectiveness is much lower than in pre-adolescents, the target age group for the HPV vaccine," said Jane Kim, K.T. Li Professor of Health Economics and lead author of the study.

The study will be published March 11, 2021, in PLOS Medicine.

HPV vaccines have been shown to be highly effective in preventing HPV infections that are associated with cervical, anal, oropharyngeal, vulvar, vaginal, and penile cancers, as well as genital warts. Current U.S. guidelines recommend HPV vaccination for girls and boys at age 11 or 12, and catch-up vaccination for people through age 26 if they were not vaccinated when younger. For adults beyond age 26, the guidelines don't specifically recommend catch-up vaccination but suggest that, for people aged 27-45, clinicians and patients make decisions about HPV vaccination on an individual basis.

The new study, undertaken to inform these national guidelines, used two mathematical models--from Harvard and Cancer Council New South Wales, Australia--that simulated scenarios of extending HPV vaccination to women and men up to age 45 years. Using U.S. data, the models projected cost and health outcomes of the six HPV-associated cancers and genital warts, taking into account historical and future vaccination uptake in younger people, cervical cancer screening practices among women, vaccine efficacy, and vaccination costs. The researchers sought to determine whether the benefits of HPV vaccination at older ages would have an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) that was in line with a commonly-cited upper threshold of $200,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY). QALYs are a measure of life expectancy adjusted to account for quality of life associated with health conditions and events.

The researchers found that HPV vaccination beyond age 26 in the U.S. would provide limited health benefit at the population level, at a substantial cost, given current HPV vaccine prices. Their analysis showed that the ICER for vaccinating people up to age 45 years ranged from $315,700 to $440,600 per QALY gained.

Kim noted that current HPV vaccines are prophylactic and therefore most effective when given prior to HPV exposure, which can happen soon after sexual initiation; once someone is exposed to HPV, the vaccine won't clear those infections. "By the time you vaccinate individuals in their 30s and 40s, many have already been exposed to HPV, so the health benefit really decreases at these older ages," she said. "It's also important to emphasize that cervical cancer screening remains an effective and cost-effective way to protect women from cervical cancer."

The study results, which were previously reported to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, helped inform the committee's June 2019 recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on HPV vaccination. "Other countries that are considering extending the upper age limit of HPV vaccination to include older adults should consider the opportunity costs of doing so," said Kim.

INFORMATION:

Other Harvard Chan School co-authors of the study included Emily Burger, Stephen Sy, and Catherine Regan.

Funding for the study came from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (grant number U01CA199334).

"Human papillomavirus vaccination for adults aged 30 to 45 years in the United States: A cost-effectiveness analysis," Jane J. Kim, Kate T. Simms, James Killen, Megan A. Smith, Emily A. Burger, Stephen Sy, Catherine Regan, Karen Canfell, PLOS Medicine, online March 11, 2021, doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003534

Visit the Harvard Chan School website for the latest news, press releases, and multimedia offerings.

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of global health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere. As a community of leading scientists, educators, and students, we work together to take innovative ideas from the laboratory to people's lives--not only making scientific breakthroughs, but also working to change individual behaviors, public policies, and health care practices. Each year, more than 400 faculty members at Harvard Chan School teach 1,000-plus full-time students from around the world and train thousands more through online and executive education courses. Founded in 1913 as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, the School is recognized as America's oldest professional training program in public health.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Foodborne fungus impairs intestinal wound healing in Crohn's disease

2021-03-11
Eating is a dangerous business. Naturally occurring toxins in food and potentially harmful foodborne microbes can do a number on our intestines, leading to repeated minor injuries. In healthy people, such damage typically heals in a day or two. But in people with Crohn's disease, the wounds fester, causing abdominal pain, bleeding, diarrhea and other unpleasant symptoms. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Cleveland Clinic have discovered that a fungus found in foods such as cheese and processed meats can infect sites of intestinal damage in mice and people with Crohn's and prevent healing. Moreover, treating infected mice with antifungal medication eliminates the fungus and allows the wounds ...

AI analysis of how bacteria attack could help predict infection outcomes

2021-03-11
Insights into how bacterial proteins work as a network to take control of our cells could help predict infection outcomes and develop new treatments. Much like a hacker seizes control of a company's software to cause chaos, disease-causing bacteria, such as E. coli and Salmonella, use miniature molecular syringes to inject their own chaos-inducing agents (called effectors) into the cells that keep our guts healthy. These effectors take control of our cells, overwhelming their defences and blocking key immune responses, allowing the infection to take hold. Previously, studies have investigated single effectors. Now a team led by scientists at Imperial College London and The Institute of Cancer ...

Contactless high performance power transmission

Contactless high performance power transmission
2021-03-11
A team led by Christoph Utschick and Prof. Rudolf Gross, physicists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has developed a coil with superconducting wires capable of transmitting power in the range of more than five kilowatts contactless and with only small losses. The wide field of conceivable applications include autonomous industrial robots, medical equipment, vehicles and even aircraft. Contactless power transmission has already established itself as a key technology when it comes to charging small devices such as mobile telephones and electric toothbrushes. Users would also like to see contactless charging made available for larger electric machines such as industrial robots, medical equipment and electric vehicles. Such devices could ...

How to make all headphones intelligent

How to make all headphones intelligent
2021-03-11
How do you turn "dumb" headphones into smart ones? Rutgers engineers have invented a cheap and easy way by transforming headphones into sensors that can be plugged into smartphones, identify their users, monitor their heart rates and perform other services. Their invention, called END ...

UCI-led team creates new ultralightweight, crush-resistant tensegrity metamaterials

UCI-led team creates new ultralightweight, crush-resistant tensegrity metamaterials
2021-03-11
Irvine, Calif., March 11, 2021 - Catastrophic collapse of materials and structures is the inevitable consequence of a chain reaction of locally confined damage - from solid ceramics that snap after the development of a small crack to metal space trusses that give way after the warping of a single strut. In a study published this week in Advanced Materials, engineers at the University of California, Irvine and the Georgia Institute of Technology describe the creation of a new class of mechanical metamaterials that delocalize deformations to prevent failure. They did so by turning to tensegrity, a century-old design principle in which isolated ...

Researchers boost potency of an HIV-1 antibody, tracing new pathways for vaccine development

Researchers boost potency of an HIV-1 antibody, tracing new pathways for vaccine development
2021-03-11
LAWRENCE -- Much like coronavirus, circulating HIV-1 viruses mutate into diverse variants that pose challenges for scientists developing vaccines to protect people from HIV/AIDS. "AIDS vaccine development has been a decades-long challenge partly because our immune systems have difficulty recognizing all the diverse variants of the rapidly mutating HIV virus, which is the cause of AIDS," said Brandon DeKosky, assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and chemical & petroleum engineering at the University of Kansas. In the past five years, tremendous progress has been ...

CHOP researchers reveal how critical part of lung forms at cellular level

2021-03-11
Philadelphia, March 12, 2021 - Researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have determined what happens at a cellular level as the lung alveolus forms and allows newborns to breathe air. Understanding this process gives researchers a better sense of how to develop therapies and potentially regenerate this critical tissue in the event of injury. The findings were published online today by the journal Science. The lung develops during both embryonic and postnatal stages, during which lung tissue forms and a variety of cell types perform specific roles. During the transition from embryo to newborn is when the alveolar region of the lung ...

Skoltech team shows how Turing-like patterns fool neural networks

2021-03-11
Skoltech researchers were able to show that patterns that can cause neural networks to make mistakes in recognizing images are, in effect, akin to Turing patterns found all over the natural world. In the future, this result can be used to design defenses for pattern recognition systems currently vulnerable to attacks. The paper, available as an arXiv preprint, was presented at the 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-21). Deep neural networks, smart and adept at image recognition and classification as they already are, can still be vulnerable ...

Scientists discover cellular stress enzyme that might play key role in neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS

2021-03-11
An enzyme called MARK2 has been identified as a key stress-response switch in cells in a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Overactivation of this type of stress response is a possible cause of injury to brain cells in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. The discovery will make MARK2 a focus of investigation for its possible role in these diseases, and may ultimately be a target for neurodegenerative disease treatments. In addition to its potential relevance to neurodegenerative diseases, the finding is an advance in understanding basic cell biology. The paper describing ...

Cheaper carbon capture is on the way

Cheaper carbon capture is on the way
2021-03-11
RICHLAND, Wash.--As part of a marathon research effort to lower the cost of carbon capture, chemists have now demonstrated a method to seize carbon dioxide (CO2) that reduces costs by 19 percent compared to current commercial technology. The new technology requires 17 percent less energy to accomplish the same task as its commercial counterparts, surpassing barriers that have kept other forms of carbon capture from widespread industrial use. And it can be easily applied in existing capture systems. In a study published in the March 2021 edition of International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory--along with collaborators from ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Underserved youth less likely to visit emergency department for concussion in Ontario, study finds

‘Molecular shield’ placed in the nose may soon treat common hay fever trigger

Beetles under climate stress lay larger male eggs: Wolbachia infection drives adaptive reproduction strategy in response to rising temperature and CO₂

Groundbreaking quantum study puts wave-particle duality to work

Weekly injection could be life changing for Parkinson’s patients

Toxic metals linked to impaired growth in infants in Guatemala

Being consistently physically active in adulthood linked to 30–40% lower risk of death

Nerve pain drug gabapentin linked to increased dementia, cognitive impairment risks

Children’s social care involvement common to nearly third of UK mums who died during perinatal period

‘Support, not judgement’: Study explores links between children’s social care involvement and maternal deaths

Ethnic minority and poorer children more likely to die in intensive care

Major progress in fertility preservation after treatment for cancer of the lymphatic system

Fewer complications after additional ultrasound in pregnant women who feel less fetal movement

Environmental impact of common pesticides seriously underestimated

The Milky Way could be teeming with more satellite galaxies than previously thought

New study reveals surprising reproductive secrets of a cricket-hunting parasitoid fly

Media Tip Sheet: Symposia at ESA2025

NSF CAREER Award will power UVA engineer’s research to improve drug purification

Tiny parasitoid flies show how early-life competition shapes adult success

New coating for glass promises energy-saving windows

Green spaces boost children’s cognitive skills and strengthen family well-being

Ancient trees dying faster than expected in Eastern Oregon

Study findings help hone precision of proven CVD risk tool

Most patients with advanced melanoma who received pre-surgical immunotherapy remain alive and disease free four years later

Introducing BioEmu: A generative AI Model that enables high-speed and accurate prediction of protein structural ensembles

Replacing mutated microglia with healthy microglia halts progression of genetic neurological disease in mice and humans

New research shows how tropical plants manage rival insect tenants by giving them separate ‘flats’

Condo-style living helps keep the peace inside these ant plants

Climate change action could dramatically limit rising UK heatwave deaths

Annual heat-related deaths projected to increase significantly due to climate and population change

[Press-News.org] HPV vaccines for adults over age 26 may not be cost-effective