HPV vaccine efficacy in preventing persistent cervical HPV infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Introduction: We performed a pooled analysis of randomised clinical trials (RCT) on HPV vaccine efficacy in preventing cervical persistent infection.

Methods: We carried out a bibliographic search on electronic databases and we selected RCT to perform the meta-analyses.

Results: We selected five studies. The first meta-analysis, including all studies, showed an important reduction of the risk of infection from HPV 16 in vaccinated cohort [RR 0.10 (95% CI: 0.07-0.15)]. The second and third meta-analyses, including only studies on bivalent and tetravalent vaccines, showed a RR of 0.13 (95% CI: 0.09-0.20) for HPV 16 infections and a RR of 0.22 (95% CI: 0.13-0.38) for HPV 18 ones.

Discussion: HPV vaccine efficacy in preventing persistent infection is high but there is the need for further studies on the duration of immunization and long-term vaccine efficacy.