TEAM UP Tennessee: How Common is HPV / Cervical Cancer?

HPV

Did you know that at any given time 20 million people in the U.S. have HPV and 5.5 million become infected each year?

Since the advent of the Papanicolaou (pap) smear in the 1950s, cervical cancer rates have decreased by over 70%!!!
Cervical cancer is the 14th most common cancer in the United States, however, worldwide, cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer and the third most common cause of death from cancer for women.
In 2006, there were approximately 10,000 cases of cervical cancer in the United States and 4,000 deaths.
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2008 roughly 11,000 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer.
The five-year survival rate for women diagnosed with cervical cancer is 75%. If cervical cancer is caught early enough, it is highly curable.
Many women in developing countries do not have access to pap screening which results in a much higher rate of cervical cancer. This fact makes the HPV vaccine particularly important in these settings.
Certain groups have a higher prevalence of cervical cancer in the U.S.:
- African-American women in the South
- Hispanic women along the Texas-Mexico border
- White women in Appalachia
- American Indians of the Northern Plains
- Vietnamese-American women
- Alaska natives

The following chart compares US and Tennessee incidence and mortality rates by race/ethnicity between 1996-2000.

US and Tennessee Cancer Incidence and Mortality Rates by Race/Ethnicity
Uterine Cervix, 1996-2000 ¹,²
Race	Incidence US	Incidence TN	Mortality US	Mortality TN
All women		10.0		3.8
Caucasian	9.2	9.1	2.7	3.3
African-American	12.4	16.4	5.9	7.2
Hispanic	16.8	-	3.7	-
Other

The following illustrates what percentage of women who have HPV will end up with Cervical Cancer ³:

HPV and Cervical Cancer - All Women

HPV and Cervical Cancer - About 80% of Women will be infected with HPV in their lifetime.

HPV and Cervical Cancer - About 7% of Women will have an abnormal Pap test.

HPV and Cervical Cancer - 300,000 Women (per year in the Unites States) will have a high grade precancerous lesions.

HPV and Cervical Cancer - About 10,000 Women (per year in the United States) will develop cervical cancer.

2. Hyphens represent suppression of rates when there were 75,000 or fewer persons in the denominator or 20 or fewer deaths in the numerator.

3. Source: Gynecologic Cancer Foundation presentation "The Cervical Cancer Vaccine: Facts and Information".