Doctors worry that if a young woman is told she has HPV aged 20, she’ll be anxious until her next test three years later - at which point they would expect it to have gone away without treatment. If HPV is discovered too early, there's a risk of over-treating, which can lead to fertility problems later in life. And it is still rare for younger women to have cervical cancer - with an average of just 2.6 cases per 100,000 women, according to Public Health England. It's for these reasons that the age limit was moved from 20 to 25 in the first place.