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Edith A. Zang, PhD; Ernst L. Wynder, MD; Randall E. Harris, PhD, MD
American Health Foundation New York, NY

JAMA. 1989;262(4):499.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

We would like to comment on the article by Slattery et al¹ entitled "Cigarette Smoking and Exposure to Passive Smoke Are Risk Factors for Cervical Cancer."

In case-control studies there is always the danger of overmatching or undermatching in selection of control subjects. In this report, there clearly is undermatching of control patients with regard to important risk factors including sexual activity, religious background, and education. For example, 52% of control subjects vs only 10% of case subjects reported having fewer than two sexual partners; 75% of control subjects but only 49% of case subjects were high school graduates; and 58% of control subjects vs 18% of case subjects were frequent churchgoers. Since the previously mentioned risk factors are correlated highly with one another as well as with active and passive smoking, the risk estimates relating smoking and cervical cancer may be subject to substantial bias . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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