evidence: Large Study Confirms that HPV Vaccine Prevents Cervical Cancer , by NCI Staff In what many global health leaders are calling a milestone study, researchers in Sweden have confirmed that widespread use of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine dramatically reduces the number of women who will develop cervical cancer. [...] "Because HPV vaccination prevents persistent HPV infection and cervical precancer, the precursors to cervical cancer, we were confident we would eventually observe that HPV vaccination prevents cervical cancer. We also knew it would take time to observe that," said Aimée R. Kreimer, Ph.D., of NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, who studies HPV vaccines and cancer prevention.