Preventive medicine
-
The age-standardised rate of cervical cancer is 8.5 per 100,000 in England, double the WHO "elimination" goal of 4.0 per 100,000, despite England being close to the target coverage for both HPV vaccination and cervical screening. Our aim was to see whether trends in mortality and incidence rates suggest that England is on the path to elimination. ⋯ Raising the age of starting screening from 20 to 25 transiently increased incidence and mortality in women born 1984-1990. Vaccination may enable the NHS to reach its target for cervical cancer incidence of 4.0 per 100,000 by 2040. Whether the switch from cytology to primary HPV testing in 2019 will reduce rates among unvaccinated women born before 1991 is not yet clear.