The Association Between Unwanted Sexual Experiences and Early-Onset Cervical Cancer and Precancer by Age 25: A Case-Control Study

We examined the association between unwanted sexual experiences and cervical cancer, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 3, adenocarcinoma in situ, diagnosed ≤25 years of age.

A case-control study of women ≤55 years who attended gynecological hospitals in Australia between 1983 and 2007. Cases were ≤25 years when diagnosed with disease, control group 1 were "older women" >25 years at diagnosis; control group 2 were "well women" ≤25 years attending preventive health clinics. A self-administered postal survey was utilized. The main outcome measures were prevalence of childhood sexual abuse (<16 years) and unwanted adolescent sexual experiences (between 16 and 18 years) in cases compared to controls.

Of 400 contactable subjects, 251 participated (62.8%). Prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in cases (26.6% [25/94]) was similar to other groups. Prevalence of childhood genital contact abuse in cases with cervical cancer was 45.5% [5/11], compared to older women (20% [10/50], p = 0.08) and well women (13.8% [8/58], p = 0.01), and was marginally more common compared to well women when adjusted for other lifestyle factors (odds ratio [OR]: 4.7 [1.0-22.6], p = 0.05). Prevalence of unwanted adolescent sexual experiences in cases was 28.9% [33/114]. Prevalence of adolescent penile-genital contact experiences in cervical cancer cases was 46.7% [7/15], compared to older women (9.4%, [6/64], p < 0.001) and well women (13.7%, [10/73], p = 0.003), and was more common compared to well women when adjusted for lifestyle (OR: 5.9 [1.4-24.9], p = 0.02) and sexual health risk factors (OR: 5.6 [1.4-22.1] p = 0.01).

Unwanted sexual experiences with genital contact were a risk factor for invasive cervical cancer ≤25 years, likely due to a complex interplay of biological and environmental factors.