Puerto Rico (PR) has one of the highest cervical cancer incidence rates in the United States, with 11.5 cases per 100,000 women, compared to 7.5 cases per 100,000 women nationally.¹

Between 2001 and 2019, the incidence of advanced-stage cervical cancer in Puerto Rico increased at an annual rate of 4.5%, demonstrating that this upward trend cannot be attributed solely to increased early detection of the disease.²

Despite Puerto Rico maintaining high levels of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, reaching 77.0% among adolescents aged 13 to 17, and considerable participation in screening tests (79.3%),³˒⁴ the Island is still far from achieving the cervical cancer elimination goal set by the World Health Organization (WHO), which defines the target as an incidence of four cases or fewer per 100,000 women.

Given this reality, cervical cancer incidence trends in Puerto Rico were evaluated, using both hysterectomy-corrected data and uncorrected data, with the aim of obtaining a more precise understanding of the true burden of this disease in the Puerto Rican female population.

‍

‍

‍