Gardasil, the cervical cancer vaccine expected to receive FDA approval any day now, and proven to provide women 100 percent protection against cervical cancer, might also offer the same level of protection against vulvar and vaginal cancers. Finnish researchers of the study that made the discovery note that while vulvar and vaginal cancers are less common than cervical cancer, more younger women are being diagnosed with vulvar and vaginal cancers.

The cervical cancer vaccines set to be approved this year guard against human papillomavirus, HPV -- a virus known to lead to cervical cancer. HPV is responsible for all cases of cervical cancers and is present in 80 percent of the 6,000 cases of vaginal and vulvar cancers diagnosed in the United States each year.

In a separate study, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have announced that the cervical cancer vaccine might lead to less cancer of the head and neck. "If we vaccinate everybody in the U.S., we could probably impact head and neck cancer in approximately 20 years," said Marshall Posner, director of the head and neck oncology program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.