The Global Burden of Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is a health crisis impacting women and their families across the world – especially in low-resource settings. Here are the facts:

• In 2022, around 660,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer globally.
• Cervical cancer killed approximately 348,000 women in 2022, 90% of whom were in less-developed regions of the world, where access to prevention, screening, and treatment services are severely limited.
• Cervical cancer is the most common cancer among women in 25 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in 37 countries.
• Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in terms of both incidence and mortality in women.
• Today, more women are dying of cervical cancer than are dying in childbirth.
• The odds of dying upon progressing to cervical cancer are similar to those upon contracting Ebola.
• A woman diagnosed with cervical cancer is almost twice as likely to die than a woman diagnosed with breast cancer.
• A woman living with HIV is six times more likely to develop cervical cancer than her HIV-negative peers.

 

These tragic numbers are real. So are the solutions. With wider access to HPV vaccines and cervical cancer screening and treatment, we can end this global epidemic in a generation, but not nearly enough resources are available for these critical programs.

 

Sources for cervical cancer statistics: 

Bray F, Laversanne M, Sung H, Ferlay J, Siegel RL, Soerjomataram I, Jemal A. Global cancer statistics 2022: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. CA Cancer J Clin. 2024 May-Jun;74(3):229-263. doi: 10.3322/caac.21834. Epub 2024 Apr 4. PMID: 38572751.

World Health Organization. Cervical Cancer. Last updated February 22, 2022.

Global Cancer Observatory. Cervix uteri (Fact Sheet). January, 2021.

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. HIV and Cervical Cancer. November 2022.