The impact of catch-up bivalent human papillomavirus vaccination on cervical screening outcomes: an observational study from the English HPV primary screening pilot

BACKGROUND: In England, bivalent vaccination (Cervarix) against high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) genotypes 16/18 was offered in a population-based catch-up campaign in 2008–2010 to girls aged 14–17 years. These women are now entering the national cervical screening programme. We determined the impact of catch-up bivalent vaccination on their screening outcomes. METHODS: We studied the overall and genotype-specific screening outcomes in 108,138 women aged 24–25 (offered vaccination) and 26–29 years (not offered vaccination) included in the English HPV screening pilot between 2013 and 2018. RESULTS: At 24–25 years, the detection of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2+) associated with HPV16/18 decreased from 3 to 1% (p < 0.001), with estimated vaccine effectiveness of 87% (95% CI: 82–91%). The detection of any CIN2+ halved from 6 to 3% (p < 0.001), with an estimated vaccine effectiveness of 72% (95% CI: 66–77%). The positive predictive value of a colposcopy for CIN2+ decreased for both low-grade (p < 0.001) and high-grade (p = 0.02) abnormalities on triage cytology. The decreases in screen-detected abnormalities at age 26-29 were of a substantially smaller magnitude. CONCLUSIONS: These data confirm high effectiveness of bivalent HPV vaccination delivered through a population-based catch-up campaign in England. These findings add to the rationale for extending screening intervals for vaccinated cohorts.