Primary cancer of the female urethra

RIMARY cancer of the female urethra, al-P though uncommon, is by no means rare.The first case was reported by Boivin and Dug& in 1833. 2 The first case report in the English literature is attributed to McCill in 1890.23By 1933 Counseller and Paterson had collected 124 cases from the literature and added 12 of their own.6McCrea,22 in an excellent review of the subject in 1952, found 564 authenticated cases.Since this time, reports of primary cancer of the female urethra have appeared with increasing frequency.699, lo.30, 86 It is the purpose of this paper to report the experience with 23 cases of primary urethral cancer in women collected from the records of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass., and the Pondville Hospital, Walpole, Mass.Some of the Pondville cases have been previously reported by Graves and Guiss.l3The female urethra is in such close proximity to organs more often attacked by cancer that it may be difficult to identify the true site of tumor origin.To be certain that only instances of primary urethral cancer were selected it was necessary to delete those cases which from their gross description seemed to arise in other pelvic organs and those which by cystoscopy showed papillary tumor extensively involving the bladder neck.All of the cases reported herein were confirmed by histological examination. INCIDENCEThe incidence of cancer of the female urethra will vary with the type of the hospital in which cases are studied.At the Pondville Hospital, an institution devoted solely to the treatment of referred cancer patients, it was 1 in 1,900 female admissions.At the Massachusetts General Hospital the incidence has been 1 in 23,000 female admissions.