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Cervical cancer vaccine has 100% success rate
Trials of a new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer have fuelled hopes of a breakthrough in the battle against the disease after achieving a 100% success rate.
All of the women given the drug so far have not developed the human papilloma virus (HPV) - the cause of most cases of cervical cancer.
The drug, owned by pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme, is currently undergoing further tests.
Dr Anne Szarewski, a clinical consultant at Cancer Research UK, says the vaccine could be given to girls as young as 10.
She added: "The people who were given the vaccine - none developed any form of HPV.
"In the control group who were not given the vaccine some people did. This vaccine is many years ahead of others."
She added: "It has undergone a fairly small trial - a Phase II trial - of around a few hundred people. A phase III trial of thousands is under way."
The new research is being co-ordinated by Professor David Jenkins of the University of Nottingham.
It involves the testing 6,000 women worldwide including in Nottingham, Glasgow and London.
Around half a million women develop cervical cancer across the globe each year