Geographical pathology of cancer of the uterine cervix.

The availability of age-standardized cancer incidences for different parts of the world has enabled a thorough and meaningful analysis of the geographical distribution of cancer of the uterine cervix. The high morbidity and mortality from cervical cancer reported for most European countries and North America at the beginning of this century has, in recent years, been superseded by those for Asian, African, Latin American and Caribbean countries with the provision of additional data. Striking differences in cervical cancer incidences have been observed among various ethnic groups in Africa which seem to reflect variations in the intensity of certain environmental influences. Cervix cancer is uncommon in the white population of North America and Europe with the exception of West Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Yugoslavia. In the United States, the highest incidence occurs in Puerto Rican women of New York City and the Latin population of the South. The very low incidence in Jewish women is virtually the same in New York City as in Israel. This world-wide survey has shown that poor sexual hygiene rather than lack of male circumcision per se is a more important aetiological factor in cervical cancer.