Epidemiology of cancer of the cervix in Buffalo, New York.

An investigation was done to determine whether patients with cancer of the cervix from Buffalo and Kenmore, New York, differed from a random sample of women from the same communities on a variety of parameters associated with marital and reproductive history. A comparison of the 285 patients and 1,620 controls showed that patients were more likely than controls to have been black and non-Jewish, to have married young, to have had more than one husband, and to have been young at the time of their first pregnancy. In addition, they were more likely to have frequently used the vaginal douche and to have used it over many years. As frequency of douche increased, so did risk of cervix cancer.