According to the results of a new study presented this week at the annual meeting of the European Research Organization on Genital Infection and Neoplasia, Merck’s HPV vaccine Gardasil, which is primary given to women as a measure to prevent cervical cancer, cuts the risk of genital warts and pre-cancerous lesions by 90 percent in men.

The study included 4,065 men aged 16-26. Of the 4,000 males in the study, 3,400 were heterosexuals up to age 23 and another 600 were homosexual up to age 26. The participants were given three shots of Gardasil or a placebo over six months. Those who were vaccinated were 90% less likely to develop genital warts and external genital lesions related to the four types of HPV – 6,11, 16, 18 – that the vaccine targets.

According to the findings, there were only three cases of genital warts among the Gardasil group versus 31 cases in the placebo group.

The company said it will use the findings to seek U.S. approval to sell the HPV vaccine for males to protect them against warts and lesions that may lead to cancer of the penis and anus.

“This opens up some really important questions for further research,” said study co-author Anna Giuliano of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida. The HPV vaccine Gardasil was approved in 2006 for girls and young women between the ages of 9 and 26 to prevent infections with four strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which cause most genital warts and cervical cancers. Girls can get Gardasil when they’re as young as 9. A study carried out by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that, if the vaccine is administered to females before they become sexually active, the measure proves very cost-effective in terms of preventing cervical cancer.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the world. At least 25,000 cases of cancers associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) occurred annually in 38 states and Washington, D.C., between 1998 and 2003, according to a study released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.