The study included a total of 4,872,295 patients, with 1,281,997 in the SARS-CoV-2 infection group and 3,590,298 in the non-infection group. After propensity score matching, both groups comprised 1,281,997 patients each. Over a 3-year follow-up period, individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection had significantly higher risks of developing HPV-related cancers compared to those without infection: a 67% increase in cervical cancer, 131% in vaginal cancer, 98% in vulvar cancer, 92% in anal cancer, and 78% in oropharyngeal cancer. Similar trends were observed for carcinoma in situ, with increased risks of 34% for cervical, 61% for vaginal, 74% for vulvar, 96% for anal, and 78% for oropharyngeal carcinoma in situ. Subgroup analyses stratified by age and race demonstrated consistent results.

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[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Curious where they found 3.5 mil people who never had covid and I guess this is it

Participants were divided into two groups based on SARS-CoV-2 infection status: the infection group consisted of individuals diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 between January 1 and December 31, 2020, while the control group included those who remained unin- fected during the same period.

According to who? Databases?

The surveillance was 3 years so even if those 3.5mil were truely never covid as of Dec 31 2020, who know what happens after?

Many other issues suggest themselves.

Can anyone with a stats background look if the method was good?

[–] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 8 points 6 months ago

Medicine struggles to get perfect studies since often you can't randomly assign a covid infection onto people. There's been a lot of right-wing criticism about covid research. For instance, there hasn't been any randomised controlled trial (RCT) on masks. But no researcher would dare insist on someone not wearing a mask during the pandemic, and there's been enough non-RCT mask studies such that their effectiveness is pretty conclusive.

To answer your question, cohort studies try to answer those tricky medical questions. It can be difficult. By insisting on a arbitrary cut-off date for infection, the end of 2020, it tries to make the football match fair for both sides. Indeed both the COVID-infected and non covid-infected groups may have gotten COVID after the deadline, so it almost evens it out.

Many other issues suggest themselves.

Sure, there's hidden confounding variables in there. Like maybe people who got covid early maybe are more likely to be poor and/or working class? This study trying to check many of these hidden variables by also checking if HPV vaccination rates, age, and race. It's not perfect, but cancer rates where higher amongst all groups who got COVID.

Despite the limitations of the study, which the authors detail extensively at the end of the Discussion section, the numbers are so large that it is very telling. That this study just adds to research on COVID and cognitive decline, strokes, heart attacks, GI issues, mental health issues, etc should tell us that COVID is more of a risk than we imagine it to be.