HPV Vaccination Program Brings Lower Rates of Cervical Disease in Scotland

By Joe Elia

Edited by Susan Sadoughi, MD, Valerie Nelson, MD, MBA, and Richard Saitz, MD, MPH, FACP, DFASAM

Cervical disease at age 20 has plummeted in Scotland following a national effort to have 12- and 13-year-old girls receive a bivalent vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a report in The BMJ.

Compared with a cohort born before the vaccine was available, the vaccinated cohort had nearly a 90% reduction in the prevalence of CIN grade 3 or worse findings on their cervical smears at age 20; the prevalence was 0.59% among the unvaccinated versus 0.06% among the vaccinated. Similar drops were also noted for the lower CIN grades.

An editorialist writes that the results "unequivocally show high vaccine effectiveness in young women against high grade cervical disease regardless of causal HPV type."