Four-hundred-forty-five husbands of women with invasive cervical carcinoma, 165 of women with in situ cervical cancer, and 717 of control women (age range 19 -82 years) were interviewed and a sample of exfoliated cells from the penis obtained in seven case -control studies conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The characteristics of human papillomavirus-positive and human papillomavirus-negative husbands were compared using odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Thirteen per cent of the husbands of control women, 18% of the husbands of women with invasive cervical carcinoma, and 21% of the husbands of in situ cervical carcinoma women were positive for penile human papillomavirus DNA. Human papillomavirus 16 was detected in 45 husbands, human papillomavirus 18, 31 or 33 in 19, and human papillomavirus 6/11 in 6, but the majority of human papillomavirus infection (158) was with other or unspecified human papillomavirus types. The same human papillomavirus type was seldom identified in both husband and wife. The strongest variation in penile human papillomavirus infection was by country, with percentages among the husbands of control women ranging between 3% in Spain and 39% in Brazil. Having had over 50 lifetime sexual partners, compared with only one, was associated with an odds ratio of 2.3. British Journal of Cancer (2002) The importance of the 'male factor' (Skegg et al, 1982) in the aetiology of cervical carcinoma (CC) in women was suggested years before the identification of a sexually-transmitted virus, human papillomavirus (HPV), as the central cause of these tumours (Dürst et al, 1983;Muñoz et al, 1992). A close correlation has been reported between the frequency of cervical and penile carcinoma in populations (Bosch and Cardis, 1990) and in individual couples (Smith et al, 1980). The development of increasingly accurate assays for HPV detection has brought a clearer understanding of the prevalence of, and risk factors for, cervical HPV infection in women. Human papillomavirus DNA has been identified in 99% of CC specimens (Walboomers et al, 1999). Among women with a normal Pap smear, between a few per cent and more than 50% of women with a normal Pap smear harbour HPV DNA in their cervix, depending upon age and country (Herrero et al, 2000a;Woodman et al, 2001). Conversely, progress in understanding the prevalence and natural history of genital HPV infection in men has been limited. Most surveys of penile HPV infection so far have included a few hundred men at most and have generally been restricted to young individuals (Hippeläinen et al, 1993a,b,c;Baldwin et al, 2001;Kjaer et al, 2001;Lazcano-Ponce et al, 2001).The present study examines the prevalence and determinants of penile HPV infection, according to PCR-based assays, among 1143 husbands of women enrolled in seven case -control studies coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). MATERIALS AND METHODSThe combined data included in these analyses were collected in five case-control studies of i...

The higher HSV-2 seroprevalence in Brazil than in the Philippines may be explained largely by differences in the sexual behavior of women and their husbands. Herpes simplex virus type 2 seroprevalence data may be used as a marker of past sexual behavior for the direct comparison of different population groups.

The acetic-acid visualization and VIAM methods are recommended for initial cervical cancer screening in the Philippines.

Germline mutations of the gene encoding human ®broblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) have been shown to be responsible for several related autosomal dominant forms of syndromic craniosynostosis and short limb dwar®sm. Somatic activating mutations of FGFR3 were recently reported to occur in three of 12 (25%) uterine cervical carcinomas and nine of 26 (35%) bladder carcinomas, suggesting that constitutive activation of FGFR3 may be an important mechanism underlying the development and/or progression of these common epithelial malignancies. In order to investigate further a possible role for FGFR3 mutations in cervical carcinogenesis, we performed sequence-based mutational analysis of FGFR3 in 51 primary cervical carcinomas and seven cervical carcinoma-derived cell lines. The regions analysed (exons 7, 10, 13, 15, and 19) encompassed all previously described FGFR3 mutations. A single nucleotide substitution at codon 249, predicting a serine to cysteine amino acid substitution (S249C) in the FGFR3 extracellular domain, was identi®ed in one primary tumor. Only wild type FGFR3 alleles were identi®ed in the remaining tumors and cell lines. The S249C mutation is the only FGFR3 mutation described to date in cervical carcinomas. These ®ndings suggest that while activating mutations of FGFR3 occur in cervical cancer, they may not be as common as initially reported. Oncogene (2000) 19, 5543 ± 5546.