Up to 13 million cases of cervical cancer could be prevented by 2050

Cervical cancer could be eliminated as a public health problem in most countries by the end of the century by rapid expansion of existing interventions, according to a modelling study published in The Lancet Oncology journal.

The estimates, which are the first of their kind at a global-scale, indicate that combining high uptake of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and high HPV-based cervical screening rates in all countries from 2020 onwards could prevent up to 13.4 million cases of cervical cancer within 50 years (by 2069), and the average rate of annual cases across all countries could fall to less than 4 cases per 100,000 women by the end of the century—which is a potential threshold for considering cervical cancer to be eliminated as a major public health problem.

Rapid vaccination scale-up to 80–100% coverage globally by 2020 using a broad-spectrum HPV vaccine could prevent 6.7–7.7 million cases—but more than half of these would be averted after 2060.