Uncircumcised men run a significantly higher risk of penile cancer than those circumcised at birth, cancer researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle and the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver reported.

A greater risk of the cancer-which is rare in industrialized nations but more common in the developing world-also was linked in a new study to smoking, having many sexual partners and a history of a rash or warts on the skin of the penis.

In an editorial in the same journal, researchers Elizabeth Holly and Joel Palefsky of the University of California at San Francisco recommended public health measures to discourage smoking-but stopped short of encouraging circumcision-as a means of fighting cancer.