The incidence of cervical cancer is the third most common malignancy among women worldwide, and the second most common in developing countries like China, and the trend of younger incidence is more obvious. On July 18, 2016, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the world’s leading pharmaceutical company, announced that the cervical cancer vaccine, which is known as “the only vaccine in the world that can prevent cancer”, was approved by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) of China, making it the first vaccine approved by the SFDA to prevent cervical cancer. It is the first HPV vaccine to be approved by the State Food and Drug Administration to prevent cervical cancer. The launch of the cervical cancer vaccine is undoubtedly a sedative for the public who are afraid of cancer and want to apply it as soon as possible to avoid repeating the tragedy of Anita Mui. However, in fact, can the cervical cancer really be completely prevented from occurring? Is it really possible to be immune for life after cervical vaccination and rest easy from then on? The answer is no. First, let’s take a look at what factors can cause cervical cancer to occur. Epidemiology has found that cervical cancer is associated with human papilloma virus (HPV) infection, multiple sexual partners, smoking, early sexual intercourse (<16 years old), sexually transmitted diseases, low economic status and immunosuppression, etc. Harald zur Hausen, a German scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008, first discovered that HPV causes cervical cancer. Since HPV is the causative agent of almost all cervical cancers and most anal, vulvar and vaginal tumors, and is transmitted mainly through sexual contact, HPV infection is the most important factor in the development of the disease. The currently available cervical cancer vaccine was developed for HPV. So, why can't you rest easy after getting vaccinated against HPV? This requires taking into account the following factors. 1. Type of vaccine. Depending on their functions, HPV vaccines can be divided into two types: preventive vaccines and therapeutic vaccines. (1) Prophylactic vaccines, as the name implies, only play a preventive role but do not remove the already infected virus. Their purpose is to produce neutralizing antibodies to resist HPV L1 and or L2 viral capsid proteins and to generate an antiviral response by mobilizing humoral immunity. (2) Therapeutic vaccine, which aims to stimulate the body to produce cellular immune responses to clear the virus or mutated cells. (2) Therapeutic vaccines, which aim to stimulate the body to produce cellular immune responses to clear the virus or mutated cells and have a therapeutic effect on infected patients after injection, are still in clinical trials. There are more than 120 types of HPV, more than 30 of which are related to reproductive system infection, 10 of which are closely related to the development of cervical cancer, and from a global perspective, HPV types 16 and 18 are the most important high-risk types. Among the currently available preventive vaccines, different price types will prevent different types of HPV. bivalent vaccine: mainly prevents high-risk HPV types 16 and 18, which can prevent 70% of cervical cancer; quadrivalent vaccine: mainly prevents HPV types 16, 18, 6 and 11 HPV infections; nine-valent vaccine: currently there is a nine-valent vaccine abroad, which includes all high-risk types that can cause cervical cancer. It can prevent more than 90% of cervical cancer. Due to the specificity of the vaccine, there is no vaccine that can cover all virus subtypes, that is to say, the vaccine can only prevent the occurrence of cervical cancer caused by several specific types of virus to a certain extent, but not completely prevent the development of cancer. This is like we have resistance to hepatitis B virus after hepatitis B vaccination, but we can still get hepatitis A, C, D, etc. 3. The age of starting sexual life and the age of HPV vaccination. The age at which HPV vaccination is recommended varies from country to country and from institution to institution. The age approved by FAD is 9 to 26 years old, the earlier the HPV vaccination is given, the better. For patients who are currently infected with HPV, prophylactic vaccination does not treat the related disease, while for patients who have sex but have not yet or have been infected and the virus has been cleared, it will play a stronger protective role. 4. Personal misconceptions about the HPV vaccine and poor hygiene habits. After women are infected with HPV, not all of them will eventually develop cervical cancer because the body's immune system has a certain clearance effect on HPV, and the average time to be cleared after infection is 8~12 months. If a woman does not pay attention to sexual hygiene habits for a long time, even if she has been injected with HPV vaccine, she will be repeatedly infected with HPV many times, plus the influence of chronic inflammation, long-term use of immunosuppressive drugs due to other diseases and other factors that make the body's immune function decline, HPV cannot be cleared, thus developing into chronic persistent infection and then developing into cervical cancer. In addition, most people have misconceptions about HPV vaccination, believing that after vaccination, they will not face the threat of virus infection again, thus neglecting regular daily medical screening and unrestrained daily sexual life, which are extremely harmful to health because the duration of action of the vaccine is limited and, in addition, its effectiveness depends largely on the vaccine dose. The global promotion of HPV vaccine will certainly have a positive effect on the prevention of cervical cancer in women and will occupy an important position in the treatment of cervical cancer in the future. However, HPV vaccination only prevents the occurrence of cervical cancer, and it does not prevent all high-risk HPV types, so regular cervical cancer screening is still needed after the vaccination, especially for women who have sex and have been found to have HPV infection in the past. Therefore, there is no permanent solution to prevent the occurrence of cervical cancer. The only key to prevent cervical cancer is to maintain a healthy lifestyle, carry out sexual health education, promote late marriage and late childbirth, have regular medical checkups and screenings, detect problems in time and treat them actively.