Most of us think of cervical cancer as a disease the modern world has largely figured out.
There is a vaccine, a routine screening test, and decades of steady progress on both cases and deaths. For many women, it feels like a problem that belongs to another era.
A new forecast in Nature Medicine tells a different story. On current trends, global cervical cancer cases could climb about 20 percent and deaths close to 40 percent by 2050.
The rise comes almost entirely from countries that still lack reliable access to vaccination and screening.
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Researchers at the University of Washington analyzed data from 204 countries between 1990 and 2023 and modeled trends out to 2050. They counted roughly 887,000 new cases worldwide in 2023. By 2050, that could reach about 1.08 million.
Deaths, which stood at around 369,000 in 2023, could climb to about 522,000 a year.
Where the burden is expected to grow fastest
The projection is anything but uniform. Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to see cases rise by roughly 89 percent and deaths by about 95 percent by 2050. That would mean around 206,000 deaths a year in the region alone.
Already in 2023, low and middle-income countries accounted for the overwhelming majority of cervical cancer, nearly nine in ten cases and nine in ten deaths.
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Lead authors Natalie Pritchett and Lisa Force point out that even with vaccines and modern screening, deep inequalities in who can actually get those tools keep the disease going.
Their modeling suggests none of the seven world regions tracked in the Global Burden of Disease study is on track to meet the World Health Organization's elimination goal. That target is fewer than four cases per 100,000 women a year.
What this means in the United States
American women are not driving the global rise, but progress at home has stalled. The American Cancer Society expects about 13,490 new cases of invasive cervical cancer in the United States in 2026, and roughly 4,200 deaths.
The burden is not shared equally. Death rates run about 55 percent higher for Black women than for white women. For Native American women, they run roughly 80 percent higher.
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HPV vaccination, given in adolescence, prevents the infections that cause nearly all cervical cancers. Yet uptake has stopped climbing.
The CDC's 2025 National Immunization Survey-Teen reports that 77.7 percent of adolescents aged 13 to 17 have received at least one dose.
Only 63.4 percent are up to date with the full series. Coverage has not risen for four years in a row.
The gap is widest between the city and the country. Rural adolescents trail their urban peers by about 12 percentage points on the first dose. On completion of the full series, the gap widens to 14.2 points.
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What can women do now?
Routine screening is still the backbone of early detection, and most invasive cases appear in women who were never screened or whose last test was years ago.
Guidance from the American Cancer Society and other bodies points to HPV testing starting at 25 for most women, repeated every five years through age 65.
Many eligible adults have never had the vaccine either. HPV vaccination is now routinely offered through age 26 and is approved after a conversation with a doctor up to age 45.
Despite the preventability of this disease, many women still miss their screenings.
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Women who are overdue for a Pap or HPV test, or parents whose adolescents have not completed the vaccine series, can raise it at their next primary care visit.
This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.