Some marital-sexual concomitants of carcinoma of the cervix

The responses of 50 cervical cancer patients to questions about marital and sexual adjustment are discussed. The subjects were predominantly poor, white women from rural areas or small towns. They had to travel 50 to 150 miles to a hospital where half were treated by radiotherapy and half by surgery. Their interview responses suggest five phases in attitudes and feelings from the time of the diagnosis until six months after treatment. Of 30 subjects who had a sex partner available and who completed the third of four interviews, 70% had either as much or more desire for coitus after treatment than before illness, and 57% had coitus either as frequently or more frequently after treatment than before illness.