Aggressive Cervical Cancer on Rise Among Young Women: Peer-Reviewed Science

The HPV vaccine has failed to live up to its promise to protect against cancer

A bottle of the Human Papillomavirus vaccination at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine on September 21, 2011 in Miami, Florida. The vaccine for human papillomavirus, or HPV, is given to prevent a sexually transmitted infection that can cause cancer. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A new study from researchers at the University of California Los Angeles found that cervical cancer cases are on the rise in younger women. Specifically, the study discovered that the number of women with late-stage (stage 4) cervical cancer, which has a death rate of 83 percent within five years, has increased.

Their peer-reviewed original research, which was published in the International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer, found that advanced stage cervical cancer is rising at a rate of 1.3 percent per year. The greatest increases are among white women living in Southern states between the ages of 40 and 44. For this subgroup, stage 4 cervical cancer is rising at a rate of 4.5 percent annually.

Worse for Women of Color

However, more generally, women of color have more than 50 percent higher rates of end-stage cervical cancer than white women: 1.55 per 100,000 compared to .92 per 100,000, according to the researchers.