Categories: Diseases & Conditions

Does Circumcision Prevent Cervical Cancer?

It is one of the many myths floating around about circumcision, that males who are not circumcised have a greater risk of spreading sexually transmitted diseases and that their partners have a grater chance of having cervical cancer. But is it true, or just another medical myth?

With HPV and cervical cancer making news lately many people are looking at the causes of both. Studies have be shown that claim to link circumcision with higher rates of penile and cervical cancer, yet on the opposite spectrum there are also studies out that report no correlation. With claims on either side it is helpful to look at the facts.

The claim linking circumcision and a reduced risk of cervical cancer first appeared in 1954 by Ernst L. Wynder et al. Wynder claimed that Jewish women with circumcised husbands had lower rates of cervical cancer as a group. However in 1958 when Jones, Macdonald, and Breslow studied cervical cancer they found no relationship between circumcision and cervical cancer. A study in 1962 by Stern and Neely found that circumcision was not a factor for cervical cancer among Jewish women, however multiple marriages did increase the risk. Studies done in 1964, 1965, 1970, and 1973 all tried to find a link between cervical cancer and intact males with no conclusive relationship found.

It was in the 1980’s that the link between HPV and cervical cancer was discovered. Later research confirmed the link between HPV and cervical cancer. Studies showed an increase in risk for malnutrition, smoking, use of oral contraceptives, sexual behavior, infection with sexually transmitted diseases, or sexual partners with penile or cervical cancer, or genital warts.

In 2002 an article in the New England Journal of Medicine claimed that circumcision reduced the risk of causing cervical cancer. What did not make many headlines, however, was that this article was an inaccurate press release. Methodological flaws, conflict with other published research, and other research by the same authors drew criticism; and editorial problems at the New England Journal of Medicine at the time of the article’s release made the reported conclusions less than credible. One of the largest flaws that invalidated the study was that the authors used self-reported status not status determined by physical examination to draw their conclusions. The men in the study reported their circumcision status without being examined. Castellsaqué and the other authors also only used women who reported having had only one sexual partner, though women in some of the groups studied lived in cultures where premarital sex and extra-marital affairs would rarely be admitted to. Because of cervical cancer’s long incubation period it is quite possible that some of the women were infected with HPV by previous partners not admitted to. Also the study combined studies done in five countries without considering the varying incidence of cigarette smoking, sexual habits, use of oral contraceptives, or any of the other factors that are now known to contribute to the risk of cervical cancer.

Despite the study being flawed and the conclusions exaggerated, many still cite it as “proof” that circumcision can reduce cervical cancer rates. A quick search on Google can pull up over 480,000 pages referencing the supposed reduced risk of cervical cancer by circumcision. And yet most medical institutions do not link non-circumcision to cervical cancer. On the American Cancer Society’s website no where is circumcision listed in their tips for avoiding risk factors for cervical cancer. The Cancer Research UK website states that “researchers are fairly sure that as long as uncircumcised men are careful about keeping their genitals clean, the risk of cervical cancer in their partners should not be any greater than that for circumcised men.” The American Academy of Pediatrics states that data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision. And the Canadian Paediatric Society reports that no medical indication for male neonatal circumcision.

In fact, though the U.S. has an extremely high circumcision rate for males the Centers for Disease Control reported there is a very high rates of sexually transmitted diseases for the U.S. Diseases that should low if the circumcision/STD link were true such as genital herpes, gonorrhea and chlamydia are actually very high. This is important for two reasons: 1 research has shown that having chlamydia increases a woman’s chances of cervical cancer, and 2 a study done in 1997 on circumcision in the U.S. by Laumann shown that circumcised men reported riskier sexual behavior and found a rate of rate of 25.4/1000 for chlamydia in circumcised males and a rate of 14.9/1000 for herpes in circumcised males, while intact males had a rate of zero for chlamydia and 8.1/1000 for herpes. According to the World Health Organization countries with the highest cervical cancer rates are the U.S., Italy, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada and France. Countries with the lowest rates of circumcision, however, include Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia, the U.S.S.R., China, and Japan. It is obvious that circumcision rates do not affect the cervical cancer rates across the globe.

Though the myth that circumcision reduces the risk of cervical cancer is still wide spread, the facts simply do not support that conclusion. Other factors such as smoking, a poor diet, taking hormonal birth control, and having certain sexually transmitted diseases are far more responsible for the cervical cancer rates in the U.S. As more information about cervical cancer and its causes comes out the myths around this malady are being debunked.