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Large Study Confirms HPV Vaccine Prevents Cervical Cancer

, by NCI Staff

Image of a girl being vaccinated.

In what many global health leaders are calling a milestone study, researchers in Sweden have confirmed that widespread use of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine dramatically reduces the number of women who will develop cervical cancer.

In the study of nearly 1.7 million women, the vaccine’s efficacy was particularly pronounced among girls vaccinated before age 17, among whom there was a nearly 90% reduction in cervical cancer incidence during the 11-year study period (2006 through 2017) compared with the incidence in women who had not been vaccinated.

It’s taken some time, but the findings from the Swedish study complete the story of the HPV vaccine," said Aimée R. Kreimer, Ph.D., senior investigator in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch. “This provides the final key piece of evidence in the pathway from [HPV] infection to cancer," she said, "and HPV vaccination protects against all of it.”

Read the full NCI Cancer Current Blog post.

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