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Tag: HPV

  • Under new federal guidelines, women can test for cervical cancer at home – WTOP News

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    The Teal Wand is an FDA-approved device for at-home cervical cancer screening. It works like a tampon, allowing women to collect their own sample with support from a virtual medical provider.

    New federal recommendations have expanded testing options for HPV, which can cause cervical cancer, and bring them right to your front door.

    Women can still choose to get a pelvic exam at the doctor’s office, or they can now use a self-collection kit. HPV testing is the preferred cervical cancer screening method for women ages 30 to 65.

    “HPV is the cause of cervical cancer, and anywhere from 95 to 99% of cervical cancer,” said Dr. Ebony Hoskins, section director of gynecologic oncology at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.

    On Monday, the Health Resources and Services Administration released the new cervical cancer screening guidelines. In an article published in JAMA, the administration said self-collection “is an important and innovative breakthrough in the fight against cervical cancer and has the potential to increase screening rates and save lives.”

    The Teal Wand is an FDA-approved device for at-home cervical cancer screening. It works like a tampon, allowing women to collect their own sample and then turn it over to a laboratory for testing, with support from a virtual medical provider.

    “The test is accurate. And with that test, patients who used it found it more satisfactory to have the test administered at home,” Hoskins said. “I felt more reassured that they have providers to help guide the patient on how to do it, what the results mean if they need any follow-up care.”

    She recommended regular gynecological visits and talking to your physician, but said certain patients may benefit from an at-home test.

    “There are some people who have anxiety about doing pelvic exams,” she said. “They have transportation issues that prohibit coming into the office.”

    The Teal Wand costs $250, but insurance plans must cover the self‑collection kit starting Jan. 1, 2027.

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 4,000 women die each year from cervical cancer in the U.S. and about 13,000 new cases are diagnosed. About 20% of cervical cancer occurs in women after the age of 65, an age when most women are no longer screened.

    “It is very important to get tested and screened because cervical cancer is preventable,” Dr. Hoskins said.

    There will be a Cervical Cancer Summit in D.C. at the end of January for patients, survivors, caregivers and advocates.

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    Linh Bui

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  • Doctors have a new tool to increase cervical cancer screening: HPV self-testing

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    The American Cancer Society now includes self-testing as a recommendation for HPV tests that screen for cervical cancer.

    The American Cancer Society now includes self-testing as a recommendation for HPV tests that screen for cervical cancer.


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    Doctors in Tarrant County have a new tool that could increase screening for HPV in patients: self-testing.

    The American Cancer Society recently released guidelines recommending self-testing for HPV, allowing people to collect a sample from their cervix themselves instead of having a doctor or nurse collect it. Experts say self-collection could increase HPV screening rates and help detect cervical cancer earlier.

    “Any way that we can increase screening by lowering the barriers to screening is going to be very important,” said Dr. Andrew Wolf, a UVA Health physician who co-authored the new guidelines. “And one way to do that is have women self test.”

    HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted infection in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    HPV can cause cervical cancers, anal cancers, throat and neck cancers, vaginal cancers, vulvar cancers and penile cancers. About 13,000 people get cervical cancer each year, and 4,000 die, according to the CDC, despite vaccines that prevent most types of HPV and cervical cancer screening.

    “This is not acceptable,” Wolf said. “This is a preventable cancer. We can do better if we follow these guidelines and get our children vaccinated.”

    The HPV vaccine protects against two strains of the virus that cause about 70% of cervical cancers, said Dr. Dustin Manders, gynecologic oncologist with Texas Oncology. That means that even if you’re vaccinated, you still need to get screened, said Manders, who is also on the medical staff at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Flower Mound.

    “Just because you get the HPV vaccine doesn’t sort of get you off the hook,” he said. “There are still the other 30% of cervical cancers that come from other HPV strains.”

    Today, most cervical cancer screening is done via either an HPV test or a Pap smear.

    Screening for cervical cancer led to a dramatic drop in cervical cancer rates since the 1950s, said Jane Montealegre, an associate professor of behavioral science at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, but that progress has stalled.

    Today, there are disparities in who gets screened for cervical cancer. Women living in rural areas, who are uninsured or who otherwise have less access to medical services are less likely to be screened, Montealegre said.

    Self-testing may make cervical cancer screening more palatable for patients who have been through trauma or who feel uncomfortable with a healthcare worker doing the test, experts said.

    The self-test is similar to a COVID test, Montealegre said. In research studies, more than 95% of women report that the test is easy to use and that they’re able to follow the instructions accurately.

    The Food and Drug Administration has approved self-testing only in a healthcare office setting, meaning that patients can’t yet self-test at home. Once self-testing at home becomes available, experts said screening rates could improve dramatically.

    Montealegre conducted a research trial in Houston where some of the participants were mailed an HPV self-collection kit, while others received a phone call that told them to come in and see their provider for an HPV test. There was a 2.5-fold increase in screening when kits were sent to women’s homes, Montealegre said.

    “Home-based self-collection really is what we’re all waiting for,” Montealegre said.

    Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram

    Ciara McCarthy

    Fort Worth Star-Telegram

    Ciara McCarthy covers health and wellness as part of the Star-Telegram’s Crossroads Lab. She came to Fort Worth after three years in Victoria, Texas, where she worked at the Victoria Advocate. Ciara is focused on equipping people and communities with information they need to make decisions about their lives and well-being. Please reach out with your questions about public health or the health care system. Email cmccarthy@star-telegram.com or call or text 817-203-4391.

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    Ciara McCarthy

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  • Bernie Sanders Demands Probe of Proposal To Patent Taxpayer-Funded Cancer Drug | High Times

    Bernie Sanders Demands Probe of Proposal To Patent Taxpayer-Funded Cancer Drug | High Times

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    Sen. Bernie Sanders is once again keeping drug makers in check, suggesting that people living with cancer are being preyed on by greedy interests.

    On Monday, Sanders demanded a Department of Health-led investigation into a proposal to grant a company with an exclusive patent license for cancer treatment and methods, produced with public resources and a potential conflict of interest.

    The sexually transmitted infection Human papillomavirus (HPV) can lead to six types of cancer and most cervical cancer, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reports. It can be dormant for years or cause genital warts or worse. Last month, National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed granting Kingston, New Jersey-based Scarlet TCR a patent for a T-cell therapy for HPV, which has undergone a Phase I trial and has a Phase II trial scheduled to conclude in 2025.

    There’s no cure for HPV, but drug developers are examining T-cell therapies to combat HPV and the cancers it leads to, including Scarlet TCR. Sometimes they’re gene-engineered. (CBD is also being explored for its potential to inhibit cervical cancer cells.) 

    There’s a problem though. The patent proposal and the company’s ties to an ex-government employee and other inconsistencies were revealed in an Oct. 18 report by The American Prospect. The NIH quietly applied to be granted “an exclusive patent for a cancer drug, potentially worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, to an obscure company staffed by one of its former employees,” The American Prospect reports.

    Sanders, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, demanded a probe of the patent proposal in an Oct. 23 letter to Christi Grimm, who is inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The HELP committee also announced Sander’s open letter on Oct. 23.

    Sanders suggested the NIH is allowing a company to take advantage of a life-saving cancer drug.

    “I am growing increasingly alarmed that not only has the NIH abdicated its authority to ensure that the new drugs it helps develop are reasonably priced, it may actually be exceeding its authority to grant monopoly licenses to pharmaceutical companies that charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” Sanders wrote. “One particularly egregious example has recently been brought to my attention that I believe demands your immediate attention.”

    Sanders argued that the NIH should be doing more to lower the cost of drug therapy.

    “There does not appear to be anything reasonable and necessary about granting a monopoly for a treatment that was invented, manufactured and tested by the NIH, is already in late stage trials and could potentially enrich a former NIH employee who was one of the major government researchers of this treatment,” Sanders wrote. “Based on current law and the best interest of U.S. taxpayers who paid for this cancer therapy, it would seem to make more sense for the NIH to offer non-exclusive licenses so that multiple manufacturers can produce this important cancer therapy at reasonable and affordable prices. The apparent abuse of the system by the NIH with respect to the exclusive patent license for this cancer therapy is so egregious that it has been characterized as a ‘how-to-become-a-billionaire program run by the NIH.’”

    “If accurate,” Sanders wrote, “that would be absolutely unacceptable. The NIH should be doing everything within its authority to lower the outrageously high price of prescription drugs. It should not be granting a monopoly on a promising taxpayer-funded therapy that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer patients in a way that appears to exceed its statutory authority.”

    The American Prospect story pointed out that the NIH offering an exclusive license for a cancer treatment to a company with no website or SEC filings staffed by a former NIH employee

    More Ethical Drug Research

    There is historical precedence on life-saving drugs or therapies that didn’t need a patent: On Jan. 23, 1923, Sir Frederick G. Banting, James B. Collip, and Charles Best, discoverers of insulin, were awarded U.S. patents on insulin and the methods used. They all sold these patents to the University of Toronto for $1 each. Banting said, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.” 

    While things have changed and the price of insulin skyrocketed, new efforts are being made by the drug’s top three makers to make insulin affordable once again.

    When the polio vaccine was found to be 90% effective, its discoverer wasn’t in it for the money. On April 12, 1955, Edward R. Murrow asked Jonas Salk who owned the patent to the polio vaccine. “Well, the people, I would say,” Salk responded. “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

    In today’s pharmaceutical world, some of those values are lost.

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    Benjamin M. Adams

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