Cervical cancer can be prevented with regular screening and early detection. In order to raise awareness, the National Cervical Cancer Coalition has 10 things you should know about HPV and cervical cancer. Read a few below and check out the complete list on their website.
HPV is common
Most sexually active individuals have HPV at some point. At any time, there are approximately 79 million people in the U.S. with HPV.
Vaccination
HPV vaccines can help prevent infection from both high risk HPV types that can lead to cervical cancer and low risk types that cause genital warts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends all boys and girls get the HPV vaccine at age 11 or 12, but vaccination is available through age 26. The vaccine produces a stronger immune response when taken during the preteen years. For this reason, up until age 14, only two doses are the vaccine required. Young women and men can get the vaccine up to age 45, but for those 15 and older, a full three-dose series is needed.
Treatment
There’s no treatment for the virus itself, but health care providers have plenty of options to treat diseases caused by HPV.
Pregnancy
Pregnant women with HPV almost always have natural deliveries and healthy babies. It’s very rare for a newborn to get HPV from the mother.
Additionally, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas is working with providers to provide incentives for completing recommended preventive screening tests for our members, including screenings for cervical cancer. Read more about our efforts in a recent blog post by BCBSKS vice president of medical affairs Dr. Michael Atwood, CHIE.
BCBSKS members are encouraged to check their contracts for specific details about benefit coverage before scheduling medical services. Log into BlueAccess® for more information.
I’m curious about coverage for HPV vaccine for patients age 26-45, now that FDA has approved the vaccine. Also… noting that the link you cite in your blog is to a 2017 PDF… NOT the most recent information from NCCC. Site of most recent information from them about vaccine is: https://www.nccc-online.org/hpv-vaccines/
In their more recent one… they say vaccine is available to age 45, NOT to age 26 as in your post. Seems if citing them as source, should update link.
Just came across this blog as I was looking to get an idea if coverage has changed based on the FDA recommendations. Curious about when /if it will be covered… knowing will have increased costs.
Hi Robert, thanks for reaching out to us. The PDF we linked to is the fact sheet that was available to us from the NCCC website at the time this post published. We have since updated the link.
If you have questions about coverage for the HPV vaccine, we encourage you to reach out to our customer experience team at 1-800-432-3990 so they can answer your questions.