Cervical cancer deaths are dropping sharply among young women in the U.S.

These findings could offer a glimpse of what the future might hold if more people get vaccinated against HPV.

Researchers report that deaths from cervical cancer in the United States have significantly dropped since 2016.

Cervical cancer rates have gone down since the introduction of the HPV vaccine in 2006. Now, for the first time, a new study shows a sharp drop in deaths from cervical cancer among the first group of women in the United States who were eligible to receive the vaccine.  

“We suspected that after nearly 16 years, we might start to see the early effects of the HPV vaccine on cervical cancer deaths,” explains Ashish Deshmukh, an epidemiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. “And that’s exactly what we found.”

Deshmukh points out that while the findings are promising, he and his team cannot confirm that the HPV vaccine is directly responsible for the decrease in cervical cancer deaths. This is because it’s not clear whether the women in the study group had actually been vaccinated. The findings were published on November 27 in JAMA.

The HPV vaccine is known to protect against up to six types of cancer linked to the virus, including cervical, vaginal, vulvar, penile, oropharyngeal, and anal cancers. For this study, Deshmukh’s team focused specifically on cervical cancer and examined mortality data for women under the age of 25, covering the years from 1992 to 2021.

Falling Death Rates 

The researchers grouped the data into three-year intervals and noticed a steady decline in cervical cancer deaths of nearly 4 percent per period through 2013–2015. During that time, the death rate was approximately 0.02 per 100,000 people. The team suggests that this gradual decrease might be attributed to better prevention strategies and advancements in cervical cancer screening methods.  

However, over the next six years, they observed a much more dramatic drop in deaths—over 60 percent. B hiy the 2019–2021 period, the death rate had fallen significantly, reaching about 0.007 deaths per 100,000 people.

Declining cervical cancer deaths  

Between 1992 and 2015, the number of cervical cancer deaths among U.S. women under 25 steadily decreased with each three-year interval. Then, from 2016 to 2021, the decline became much more pronounced, with mortality rates dropping dramatically.

“They’re seeing this sharp drop in mortality at exactly the time we’d expect if the vaccination is having an impact,” says health economist Emily Burger from the University of Oslo. “Ultimately, the goal of introducing the vaccine is to prevent deaths, and this study really supports that idea.”

This conclusion is further backed by another study published in the June issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which found no cases of cervical cancer among. 

The new findings are significant because the decrease in mortality is seen only in young women, Deshmukh explains.

“Cervical cancer is still quite rare in this age group. But when we look at older women, in their 30s and 40s, the rates are much higher,” says Deshmukh. “What we’re seeing now could be a preview of what we might see in the next 20 to 30 years if we continue to increase vaccination rates.”

However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, HPV vaccination rates in the United States have stalled. For adolescents ages 13 to 17, nearly 77 percent had received at least one dose of the vaccine in 2022, and 76 percent the following year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Department of Health and Human Services has set a goal to reach an 80 percent vaccination rate in this age group by 2030.

“When we look at HPV vaccination rates in the U.S., we still haven’t met our target,” Deshmukh adds. “We really need to do better to improve vaccination rates.”