Today JAMA published a research letter spotlighting the steep decline in cervical cancer deaths in women younger than 25 in recent decades, a finding that highlights the importance of promoting human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination.
Vaccination against HPV has been recommended in the United States since 2006. The authors of the research letter looked at cervical cancer mortality data for women aged younger than 25 years from 1992 to 2021 from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Mortality rates were calculated as deaths per 100,000 persons.
The authors found that, from 1992-1994 to 2013-2015, there was an initial gradual decline of 3.7% per year in cervical cancer mortality. But from 2013-2015 to 2019-2021, mortality decreased 15.2% per year.
Steep decline in first cohort of women vaccinated
"This study found a steep decline in cervical cancer mortality among US women younger than 25 years between 2016 and 2021," the authors wrote. "This cohort of women is the first to be widely protected against cervical cancer by HPV vaccines."
We observed a substantial reduction in mortality—a 62% drop in cervical cancer deaths over the last decade, likely due to HPV vaccination.
"We observed a substantial reduction in mortality—a 62% drop in cervical cancer deaths over the last decade, likely due to HPV vaccination," said senior author Ashish Deshmukh, PhD, MPH, with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center, in an MUSC news release. "We cannot think of any other reason that would have contributed to such a marked decline."
As of 2021, HPV vaccination coverage reached 78.5%. But the COVID-19 pandemic slowed vaccine uptake from 79.3% in 2022 to 75.9% in 2023.
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