Increased frequency of carcinoma of the uterine cervix in women married to men with a previous gonorrheal infection. An epidemiological study.

An earlier investigation showed an increased frequency of squamous epithelial carcinoma of the cervix in women who had experienced gonorrhea, but that there was a long lag between the infection and diagnosis of the cervical malignancy. The present work is a retrospective study of cervical malignancy in women married to men who had had gonorrhea between 26 and 37 years previously. The women have been distributed into three groups: i) those who were married to their spouse at the time he had gonorrhea and who themselves became infected, ii) those who were married to their spouse at the time of his gonorrhea but who did not themselves become infected, iii) those who were not married to the man in question at the time of his gonorrhea and who do not recall having had had gonorrhea. The incidence rates of cervical neoplasm were found to be: group i, 27.1%, group ii, 21.7%, and group iii, 13.7%. For all three groups the figures are significantly higher than in an age-related control group drawn from the normal population. The results of the investigation lead one to suspect that a carcinogenic agent had been transferred by sexual intercourse together with the gonorrhea and that the man was the bearer of this agent long after he had undergone treatment for his gonorrhea, but that not all the women so exposed had developed a cervical neoplasm.