The ABCs of the HPV vaccine

If someone told you there was a vaccine that could prevent most cases of cervical cancer-and a growing number of head and neck cancers-would you get it? Would you want your children to get it?. An increasing number of parents are opting to have their children receive this cancer-preventing vaccine, which protects against human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus associated with about 43,000 new cases of cancer each year. Still, Yale Medicine experts say work remains to be done when it comes to educating families about the importance of the vaccine. HPV is a group of more than 150 related viruses (called types or strains), some of which can cause genital warts and cancer. It is spread through vaginal, anal, or oral sex, or through skin-to-skin contact during sexual activity with someone infected with the virus. In fact, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. An estimated 79 million Americans-most in their late teens and early 20s-are infected with it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).