Media contact: Rosanne Fohn, CTRC, 210-567-3026; fohn@uthscsa.edu
SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 27, 2016) – Directors of the nation’s 69 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Centers today called for all children and young adults to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV).
In San Antonio, the call to action came from Ian M. Thompson Jr., M.D., director of the Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The CTRC is one of the state’s four NCI-designated Cancer Centers.
“In his State of the Union address, President Obama asked the nation’s leaders to embrace cancer prevention. Encouraging parents to vaccinate their children against HPV is an excellent way to combat the most common sexually transmitted infection, which also is the cause of most cervical, anal and other genital cancers,” Dr. Thompson said.
HPV can be prevented by administering the safe and effective three-dose vaccine series to preteens, teenagers and young adults. However, a 2015 CDC report states that only 40 percent of girls and 21 percent of boys in the U.S. have completed the vaccination series. Vaccination rates in South Texas, where predominantly Latino residents struggle with various cultural and access-to-care barriers, are even lower.
With a new $1.2 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, CTRC researchers are taking this national call to action a step further by developing a professional education and community outreach program to inform adolescent patients about the vaccine and encourage them to complete the three-shot series.
See the NCI-CTRC joint call to action statement here.
###
The Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is one of the elite academic cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Designated Cancer Center, and is one of only four in Texas. A leader in developing new drugs to treat cancer, the CTRC Institute for Drug Development (IDD) conducts one of the largest oncology Phase I clinical drug programs in the world, and participates in development of cancer drugs approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. For more information, visit www.ctrc.net.