Gonorrheal infection followed by an increased frequency of cervical carcinoma

In a town with a fairly centralized health service and a well organized gynecologic health control, women who had had gonorrhea in 1954 or 1955 were reviewed for presence of cervical neoplasia and compared with age-matched controls. Of 164 women studied, 29 (17.7 per cent) had 24 or 23 years later developed cancer in situ, compared with 7 (4.3 per cent) of the controls (p < 0.001), while 8 (4.3 per cent) had invasive cancer colli uteri against only one (0.6 per cent) of the controls (p < 0.02). Malignant disease of the portio proved at least four times as common among the women with gonorrhea in their history as among the controls. The findings corroborate the view that cervical carcinoma is a sexually transmitted disease. It may be assumed that at least every fourth woman who had had gonorrhea had been or is a carrier of the carcinogenic agent(s). It is probably easier to search for and detect such agents in association with gonorrhea than in patients with already manifest cancer of the uterine cervix.