This prospective study is designed to test the hypothesis concerning the role of venereal factors in cervical carcinogenesis by determining whether the risk of developing cervical cancer is increased among the current wives of men who---at some other time---were married to other women who developed this disease. Nearly 4,200 women with histopathologically confirmed cervical cancer in the Baltimore area over the past 25 years have been identified. The husbands of these women are being followed up for the purpose of identifying all their previous and subsequent wives who, in turn are traced prospectively through time. The lifetime risk of cervical cancers among these "case" wives is then compared with that among a cohort of demographically similar "control" wives. This approach affords an epidemiologically valid test of the role of HSV-2, or any other venereally transmitted male factor in cervical cancer. At present, marital clusters of cervical cancer have been confirmed in both wives of 49 men, with somewhat more than 1,000 husbands and 'other wives' yet to be traced.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter