Cervical Cancer Awareness Month: One of the Most Preventable Cancers

Why January carries this one

The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, lists cervical cancer awareness among its January health observances. It is also called Cervical Health Awareness Month.

An awareness month is only useful if it points at something a person can act on. This one does, because cervical cancer is unusual among cancers in two ways. There is a vaccine against the virus that causes almost all of it. And there is a screening test that can find the changes that come before it, years before anything becomes cancer.

What the cervix is, and what goes wrong

The cervix is the lower, narrow end of the uterus, opening into the vagina.

Almost all cervical cancer starts with a long-lasting infection by a high-risk type of human papillomavirus. Most HPV infections clear on their own. When one does not, the virus can drive cells in the cervix into a state called a precancerous lesion. Left alone, that lesion may become cancer over a period of years.

That slow timeline is the whole reason screening works here. There is a long window in which something abnormal is present but is not yet cancer, and can be removed.

Our overview of cervical cancer covers the types and how the disease is treated.

What raises the risk once HPV is present

NCI separates two questions: who is likely to get HPV, and who is likely to go on from HPV to cancer.

For the second question, NCI names these:

• A weakened immune system. HPV infections are more likely to persist and progress in people who are immunocompromised, including those with HIV and those on medicines that suppress immune response after a transplant, for an autoimmune disease, or for cancer.
• Smoking, or breathing secondhand smoke. NCI states the risk rises with the amount of exposure.
• Reproductive factors. Both oral contraceptive use and giving birth to many children are linked to higher risk. NCI adds that the reasons are not well understood.
• Obesity, in part because screening can be harder and precancers are found less often.

There is one separate cause worth knowing. Between 1940 and 1971, some pregnant women in the United States were given a drug called diethylstilbestrol, or DES. Women whose mothers took it have a higher risk of a specific type, clear cell adenocarcinoma of the cervix and vagina.

The two things that actually prevent it

NCI states that nearly all cervical cancers could be prevented by HPV vaccination, routine screening, and proper follow-up when something abnormal is found.

Vaccination. Gardasil 9 is the vaccine approved in the United States, for females and males aged 9 to 45. It covers seven cancer-causing HPV types — 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58 — plus types 6 and 11, which cause genital warts. It offers the most protection when given before a person becomes sexually active. CDC recommends routine vaccination at age 11 or 12, and it can start at 9. It does not treat an infection someone already has.

Screening. NCI summarizes the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force schedule: a first Pap test at 21, then every three years to 29; and from 30 to 65, an HPV test every five years, an HPV/Pap cotest every five years, or a Pap test every three years. The American Cancer Society's updated guideline starts at 25 with HPV testing every five years.

Being vaccinated does not end screening. The vaccine does not cover every high-risk type. Our guide to cancer screening explains how a screening interval is set.

Symptoms that should prompt a call

Early cervical cancer usually causes nothing at all. NCI says symptoms generally start after the cancer has spread, which is exactly why screening exists.

When symptoms do appear, NCI lists:

• Vaginal bleeding after sex
• Vaginal bleeding after menopause
• Bleeding between periods, or periods heavier or longer than usual
• Watery discharge with a strong odor, or discharge containing blood
• Pelvic pain, or pain during sex

Bleeding after menopause is the one to act on fastest. It is never a normal finding, whatever the cause turns out to be. Bleeding after sex that keeps happening is the second.

NCI notes that all of these can come from conditions other than cancer, and that the only way to find out is to be seen.

What the registry shows

The American Cancer Society projects about 13,490 new cervical cancer diagnoses in the United States in 2026 and about 4,200 deaths, and SEER, the federal cancer surveillance program, prints that forecast beside its own measurements. Median age at diagnosis is 50.

Stage at diagnosis moves the numbers a great deal. Among people diagnosed between 2016 and 2022, forty-one percent of cases are found while still confined to the cervix, with five-year relative survival of 91.8%. Thirty-seven percent have reached nearby lymph nodes, at 64.0%. Sixteen percent are found after spread to distant organs, at 20.5%.

Across all stages, five-year relative survival is 68.8% for people diagnosed from 2016 through 2022.

These are averages across a whole population. They describe what happened to a large group, not what will happen to one person, and they say nothing about anyone's individual situation.

What this does not mean

An awareness month does not change any clinical recommendation. The screening intervals in January are the ones that applied in December.

Prevention is also not the same as a guarantee. Vaccination and screening together take cervical cancer risk very low, but not to zero, which is why symptoms still matter for vaccinated and screened people.

And a normal screening result describes the day of the test. It is a reason to keep to the schedule, not a reason to stop. Our page on preventing cancer puts this in the wider context.

Sources

• ODPHP (HHS): January National Health Observances — Cervical Cancer Awareness
• NCI: Cervical Cancer Causes, Risk Factors, and Prevention
• NCI: Cervical Cancer Symptoms
• NCI: Cervical Cancer Screening
• NCI SEER Stat Facts: Cervical Cancer

How this article was prepared

An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page. No named medical reviewer has reviewed it unless one is listed.

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