Infection and cervical cancer: An old fact with a recent solution

Abstract

Ever since the first report about the incidence of cancer in different populations published in nineteenth century Italy, the infectious etiology of cervical cancer has been suspected. Rigoni-Stern reported that this tumor is more frequent in married women or widows than in nuns (Rigoni 1987). Clearly, this and many subsequent epidemiologic studies could not reveal the nature of the infectious agent. Due to the often reported coexistence with syphilis and gonorrhea, Treponema pallidum and Neisseria were discussed as cause (Rotkin 1973). A long-time suspect was the Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 (HSV 2), yet prospective studies finally excluded its role in cancer and demonstrated that the previously reported link was due to a confounding effect since the HSV 2-specific antibodies that had been detected more frequently in cancer patients than in control were simply a measure for the number of sex partners (Vonka et al. 1984a, b).