Uterine Cervix

Abstract

Cancer of the uterine cervix has long been regarded as a disease of middle-aged women. In recent years there has been great concern about the increasing incidence in young women as well (Mould and Williams 1980). The preoccupation with cervical cancer in young women stems at least in part from the hypothesis that a sexually transmitted infectious agent may cause this cancer, and in part from the great increase in stage 0 — in situ — disease in young women (Beral 1974). In fact, as Fig. 10.1 clearly depicts, the age-specific incidence is nearly constant from middle age through extreme old age for invasive disease.