Cervical cancer historical perspective

Overview
Epidemiological record in the 20th century helped establish information on cervical cancer demographics and expand an understanding for specific at-risk populations.

Historical Perspective
Epidemiologists working in the early 20th century noted that:
 * 1) Cervical cancer was common in female sex workers.
 * 2) It was rare in nuns, except for those who had been sexually active before entering the convent. (Rigoni in 1841)
 * 3) It was more common in the second wives of men whose first wives had died from cervical cancer.
 * 4) It was rare in Jewish women.
 * 5) In 1935, Syverton and Berry discovered a relationship between RPV (Rabbit Papillomavirus) and skin cancer in rabbits. (HPV is species specific and therefore cannot be transmitted to rabbits)

This led to the deduction that cervical cancer could be caused by a sexually transmitted agent. Initial research in the 1950s and 1960s put the blame on smegma (e.g. Heins et al 1958), but it wasn't until the 1970s that human papillomavirus (HPV) was identified. A description by electron microscopy was given earlier in 1949 and HPV-DNA was identified in 1963. It has since been demonstrated that HPV is implicated in virtually all cervical cancers. Specific viral subtypes implicated are HPV 16, 18, 31 and 45.