Sexual dysfunction and signs of gynecologic cancer

Forty-one women recently diagnosed with early-stage cervical or endometrial cancer and a matched group of healthy women in no gynecologic distress, participated in a detailed assessment of their sexual functioning. Data included the range and frequency of sexual behavior, level of sexual responsiveness, and the presence of sexual dysfunction. Multivariate analyses of variance indicated that prior to the onset of cancer signs/symptoms the gynecologic cancer patients reported similar patterns of sexual activity and responsiveness as the healthy sample. With the appearance of disease signs, however, the gynecologic cancer patients reported experiencing significant sexual dysfunction symptoms. While sexual morbidity is typically conceptualized as occurring after the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, these data indicate that such changes are a major source of variation in describing the prediagnosis sexual status of the gynecologic cancer patient.