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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2006;296:384.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the first vaccine to protect women against cancer of the cervix, as well as a combination of drugs to improve survival in women with late-stage cervical cancer.

The vaccine, called Gardasil, is approved for use in girls and women from age 9 to 26 years. It is effective against 4 strains of the human papillomavirus. But because Gardasil does not protect against less common virus strains, routine Papanicolaou tests will continue to be important for detecting precancerous changes in the cervix.

The newly approved treatment for women with advanced cervical cancer is a combination of topotecan hydrochloride and cisplatin, and may be prescribed when a physician determines that surgery or radiation therapy are unlikely to be effective. This intervention was shown to significantly improve survival in women with advanced cervical cancer compared with cisplatin alone (http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01391.html). In . . . [Full Text of this Article]