HPV Myths – BUSTED

There’s an awful lot of misinformation out there about HPV and the HPV vaccine. Let’s see what I can do to clear up the confusion. Here are eight myths I find myself having to continually address with my patients. Let’s bust ’em! Myth#1 – HPV is forever Wrong. 90-95% of the time, HPV infections clear without any treatment. For those women with persistent HPV infection, we have pap smears to detect and treat precancerous lesions (dysplasia) years before they become invasive cancer. Myth #2 – If I’ve had the HPV vaccine, I don’t need Pap smears. Wrong again. While the HPV vaccine is highly effective against the HPV strains it targets, and those strains together cause in excess of 70% of all cervical cancers, you are not 100% protected. Sorry. Until we have a vaccine that protects against all the cancer-causing subtypes, you’ll need to get your pap smears. The good news in this front is that both Gardasil and Cervarix are showing cross-reactivity against other cancer causing strains of HPV so we may be getting a bigger bang for our buck than we initially thought. Stay tuned.. Myth #3 – The HPV Vaccine is dangerous. Actually, it’s quite safe. A recent comprehensive review of HPV vaccine safety studies to date, some with over a million subjects each, found no serious health risks from the vaccine. Like all vaccines and injections, HPV vaccination can cause some local irritation on the arm, and some young girls faint afterwards. T...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: HPV HPV & Cervical Cancer abnormal pap Cervarix Gardasil HPV Vaccine Source Type: blogs