Science and society - Delivering on the promise: HPV vaccines and cervical cancer

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines for the prevention of cervical cancer have produced encouraging results in recent clinical trials, and expectations are high that one or more vaccines will be licensed for commercial distribution within the next five years. The availability of an HPV vaccine would raise several implementation issues that must be addressed if the vaccine is to achieve the coverage necessary to significantly reduce the incidence of cervical cancer. The main implementation issues will differ between developing countries, where cervical cancer is often a leading cause of cancer deaths in women, and developed countries, where cervical cancer screening programmes have already substantially reduced the number of deaths from cervical cancer.