The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, the virus responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. It gave the green light to Merck's Gardasil Thursday, just a few weeks after an advisory panel recommended the action.

Cancer experts hailed the decision as an important step toward reducing death and suffering from cervical cancer. The disease kills more than 288,000 women worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization. In the US, cervical cancer is expected to strike more than 9,700 women in 2006, and kill about 3,700.

"FDA approval of the HPV vaccine, the first vaccine targeted specifically to preventing cancer, is one of the most important advances in women's health in recent years," said gynecologic cancer expert Carolyn Runowicz, MD, president of the American Cancer Society and director of the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.

"I don't think you can overestimate the impact this vaccine will have," said Robert F. Ozols, MD, PhD, senior vice president of the medical science division of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

Ozols moderated a press conference Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology that announced new findings about the vaccine. Finnish researchers reported that Gardasil also prevents many vaginal and vulvar cancers.

The FDA has approved the vaccine in women ages 9-26. Now that the vaccine is FDA-approved, a separate federal panel will decide what the immunization schedule should be. That announcement could come later in June.