WEDNESDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- In adolescents, co-administration of the Gardasil, Menactra, and Adacel vaccines is not associated with decreased safety, tolerability or immunogenicity of the individual vaccines, according to a study published online May 3 in Pediatrics.
Keith S. Reisinger, M.D., of Primary Physicians Research in Pittsburgh, and colleagues conducted an open-label study, in which 394 boys and 648 girls aged 10 to 17 were randomly assigned to receive concomitant administration of a 0.5-mL dose of Gardasil at day one, month two, and month six and a 0.5-mL dose of Menactra and Adacel on day one, or non-concomitant administration of Gardasil at day one, month two, and month six and Menactra and Adacel at month one.
Compared to non-concomitant administration, the researchers found that concomitant administration of the three vaccines was associated with a non-inferior immune response. For Gardasil, they found that the seroconversion rate was at least 99 percent in both groups. For Menactra and Adacel, they found that concomitant administration was non-inferior to non-concomitant administration. In the non-concomitant group, they observed one serious adverse event of transient muscular weakness that was possibly vaccine-related.
"Overall, concomitant administration was generally well tolerated and did not interfere with the immune response to the respective vaccines," the authors conclude. "Concomitant administration should minimize the number of visits required to deliver each vaccine individually, leading to increased compliance and more effective disease prevention."
Merck Research Laboratories, a division of Merck & Co. Inc., funded the study; several authors disclosed financial relationships with Merck and other pharmaceutical companies.
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