The magnitude of the axial thrust acting on pump bearings has a great influence on the operational reliability and service life of a pump for turbopumps. In the present study, radial vanes are introduced to the pump casing to control the axial thrust by changing the cavity pressure between the impeller and the casing. To investigate the effect of the vanes on the axial thrust of the pump, experimental and computational studies were performed with and without the vanes. It is shown that the vanes reduce the cavity pressure by preventing the flow from rotating with the impeller. Experimental and computational results show similar trend for the axial thrust difference between two cases with and without the vanes. The results show that the cavity vanes are very effective in controlling the magnitude of the axial thrust.