Researchers Herald One Childhood Vaccine for Preventing Hundreds of Cancer Deaths

One of the only vaccines that prevents cancer is even more effective than scientists knew.

For young women who receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) in their early teen years, the risk of dying from cervical cancer before turning 30 is effectively reduced to zero, according to new research published in The Lancet. While the HPV vaccine was known to prevent around 90 percent of cervical cancer cases, the new study is the first to explore its impact on mortality rates—and the results reveal just how strong the vaccine's protection really is.

The study, funded by Cancer Research UK, offers powerful evidence that HPV vaccination programs are saving lives. In England, roughly 200 cervical cancer deaths have been prevented to date, but those numbers are much larger on a global scale. HPV, short for human papillomavirus, is a common sexually transmitted infection that is spread through skin to skin contact. While the immune system usually flushes out HPV infection, it can cause abnormal cell growth in some infected people, which can cause multiple forms of cancer years later.

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