World Leading Vaccine Trials Conducted in Finland

Finnish research into the prevention of infections caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) and their malignant consequences has received international acclaim in the Outlook supplement of the leading scientific journal Nature published on 30 August. Clinical trial results from Finland show that a vaccine against HPV prevents localised tumours.

24,000 16 - 19 year-old women participated in the clinical trials on the HPV vaccine. The trials were conducted by the Universities of Tampere and Helsinki and the Family Federation in 2002 - 2005.

The trial results show the vaccine had a 93% efficacy in the prevention of localised cervical tumours. These results were better than expected based on the fact that the vaccine against infections caused by types 16 and 18 of the HPV virus also protect from infections caused by the other types of HPV on a larger scale than anticipated. These results have been confirmed by combining the data on the participants with the records kept by the Finnish Cancer Registry.

There is world-wide demand for information on the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine in the prevention of different types of cancer.

The effect of the pneumococcal vaccine introduced in the Finnish national vaccination programme against inflammation of the middle ear is threatened by the fact that new non-vaccine types of the bacterium become more prevalent in the population. A four-year longitudinal study conducted in Finland on the HPV virus did not detect an anomalous occurrence of non-vaccine HPV types among 5,000 people vaccinated against the virus.

This result will be verified in the near future on the basis of research conducted on 35,000 originally 12 - 15 year old Finnish teenagers among whom girls born in 1994 are now being invited to participate in a follow-up study.

- Australia has introduced a HPV vaccination strategy of girls and boys this year and it is being considered in several other Western countries where HPV vaccination coverage has been poor. The role of Finnish research in proving this strategy right will also be important in the near future, says Professor Matti Lehtinen from the School of Health Sciences at the University of Tampere.

More information on the HPV vaccine trials can be found in the website:
http://www.rokotiitus.net/english.html