Guardasil is in clinical trials for males. If and when it approved it will be for presexual boys not adults. It has shown no effectivness in people that have been previously exposed to the virus, so your doctor does not understand its mechanism of action. The Hopkins vaccine is in a very small trial group of people that there are no results from yet. Only one person has had follow up testing from that group and there seems to be increased T cell activity in that person, but one data point does not a success make.

There are many more versions of HPV that are known to be oncogenic and the list above is not correct. I would list those known, but to be honest it doesn't do anyone here any good to be able to name them.

There is no evidence that I have seen, nor been told about by my contacts at Merck that indicate that Guardasil helps those of us that came to the disease from one of the covered versions of the virus. It does not strengthen the immune system. It creates an antibody for the protein sheath that is on the outside of the virus.

A PCR test for the virus would only be positive if you have the virus in the cells that were tested. Again that knowledge wouldn't help you in any way right now. The question is not whether at some point in time you had the virus, the question is did the virus persist in you. If you had the virus and your immune system destroyed it, you wouldn't have developed an HPV related cancer. If you had the virus and it persisted in you is where the risk lies. Probably the only manner to determine if it persisted or not would be to do a blood test to find out if your immune system had time to develop an HPV16 antibody or not.

Brian, stage 4 oral cancer survivor. OCF Founder and Director. The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.