An epidemiologic study of cervical neoplastic disease. Based on a self‐selected sample of 7,000 women in Barbados, West Indies

Using several statistical techniques, the analysis of the data included in this study suggest that age at first coitus, age at first pregnancy, total number of pregnancies, and interval between pregnancies were the best discriminators in the aggregate between the two cohorts‐women with positive Papanicolaou smears and those with normal cervical cytology. The literature relevant to the many covariables that have been implicated in the multifactorial etiology of this disease are reviewed. The results presented by other investigators are contrasted with the findings of this investigation. It is suggested that data pertaining to many of the variables considered to be associated with cervical neoplastic disease are of relatively limited use in the estimation of relative risk in the individual case. Therefore, they are of restricted value in the identification of high risk subsets in the population for whom close cytologic screening would result in a measurable decrease in morbidity or mortality.