Immunization against human papillomavirus for cervical cancer prevention: is it the time to include it into children´s systematic immunization schedules?

Abstract We are facing a great development of vaccines in the last few years. We are now in front o a new vaccine, the vaccine against infections caused by human papillomaviruses (HPV) and the cancer of uterine cervix-cervical cancer (CC); a vaccine bound to prevent conditions that will be suffered in adulthood, particularilly the women. Sanitary authorities, health proffessionels and population in general have in front of them a preventive intervention that has raised extraordinary expectations, and about which there have to be taken decissions not easy at all. It is also a preventive intervention that represents a new challenge to the pediatricians because of the special features of the condition that is expected to prevent. This supplement of the journal ?Pediatría de Atención Primaria? intends to approach the scientific debate, the special feachures for the implementation of this new vaccine and its possible incorporation to the immunization schedules of children. Most of the doubts we are facing will still need of new studies to have definite answers. This presentation tries to make a brief enumeration of what has to be the subject of scientific debate in the near future and that is outlined in the papers writen by well-known experts in the topic. Key words: Cervical cancer, Human papillomavirus, Vaccines, Systematic immunization.