Summaries of Must-Read Clinical Literature, Guidelines, and FDA Actions
Increases in HPV Vaccination in Young Males
J Infect Dis; 2018 Jun; Patel, Grabowski, et al
In the US, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination coverage increased substantially among adolescent and young adult males between 2011-2012 and 2015-2016; however, coverage remains below national targets for both males and females. This according to a report that assessed temporal trends for HPV vaccine coverage among participants aged 9-26 years old in the 2011-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Among the details:
- While coverage increased overall during the study period from 37.7% to 45.7%, among females, there was no change among female adolescents aged 9-17 years.
- Coverage also increased overall among males from 7.8% to 27.4% and among every stratum of age, race/ethnicity, health insurance status, poverty level, and immigration status.
- Coverage in males remains below national targets for both males and females.
Patel EU, Grabowski MK, Eisenberg AL, Packman ZR, Gravitt PE, Tobian AAR. Increases in human papillomavirus vaccination among adolescent and young adult males in the United States, 2011–2016. J Infect Dis. 2018;218(1):109-113. doi:10.1093/infdis/jiy165.
One would think that a vaccine that could decrease cancer rates would have had a much larger uptake than the HPV vaccine has had. There are 84,000,000 Americans with HPV and 14,000,000 new cases per year. This vaccine has been too associated with sexually transmitted infections and not enough with cancer in its messaging. The hepatitis B vaccine in children has not found itself so associated with sexual transmission. When we are recommending this vaccination to parents, we should talk about these cancers that affect both our sons and daughters, with one-third of these cancers affecting men. Hopefully, with new recommendations of a regimen of 2 doses if begun before the age of 15, we can increase our rate of completion of the vaccination series. — John Russell, MD