Association of Cervical Cancer With Circumcision of Sexual Partner2

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Abstract
In a study of interviews with both cervical-cancer women patients and controls, we were unable to find an association between having the disease and reporting an uncircumcised husband. Dr. E. L. Wynder had previously reported an association in a study that also used data on circumcision history obtained from interviews with women patients. There may have been differences in asking the questions about circumcision but, if so, it is not clear how the data were affected. An additional, independent, investigation of circumcision as an anatomical fact revealed that Jewish men probably have a maximum degree of anatomically complete circumcision, which occurs in less than half of non-Jewish men who consider themselves circumcised. The unique protection from cervical cancer that Jewish women enjoy is expressed in a risk ratio of a large magnitude, and this protection may be associated with maximum circumcision in their partners. The circumcision study also revealed that one fourth to one third of men naturally may have a partially shortened foreskin, which is similar to that of some men who have been circumcised, but, in an interview study, many of them will be counted as uncircumcised. Consequently an interview study of non-Jewish subjects may fail to identify the fully circumcised and further dilute the results with many “partially circumcised” classified as uncircumcised. A study by direct examination of men seems unavoidable.

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