It is easy to get distracted. This virus not only causes cervical cancer, but it causes head and neck cancer, it causes anal cancer, it causes vulvar cancer, vaginal cancer, penile cancer, and of course, cervical cancer. The majority of the direct costs of HPV are related to cervical abnormalities, not from the cancers, but from the precancerous lesions that are involved in ultimately developing a cancer. This slide shows that 96% of the costs are related to cancer and cervical cancer abnormalities, and we are talking billions of dollars, so this is a virus that hurts people, not only their health, but also in our pocketbook.
[4] Chesson H et al. Persp Sex Repro Health. 2004;36:11-19.
[5] Clifford G et al. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2005;14:1157-64.
[6] Smith J et al. Int J Cancer. 2007;121:621-32.
[7] Data on File. GlaxoSmithKline.
