The penile cancer is a rare malignant tumor of the man. It occurs mainly in older patients. As causal factors, poor sexual hygiene and a foreskin narrowing (phimosis) are considered. This is also suggested that penile cancer occur in men who have been circumcised as newborns, less frequently.

The penile cancer is a relatively rare disease. About 600 men in Germany are diagnosed each year in this malignant (malignant tumor). This corresponds to about one percent of all malignant diseases of man. For people who already perform a circumcision in newborn boys, penile cancer is rare. Penile cancers in mostly older men, most often at the sixth decade of life. When the penis tumors are mostly (95 percent) to squamous cell carcinoma. Rarely are basal cell carcinoma, malignant melanoma and other tumors of the penis.

The penis contains erectile tissue that can swell to maintain an erection by the inclusion of a large blood volume. On the underside of the corpora cavernosa runs the urethra. Located at the end of the glans penis, which is covered by the foreskin. Necrotic mucosal cells of the glans and the inside of the foreskin are the tallow foreskin (smegma) that can be removed only by pushing back the foreskin. At a circumcision the foreskin is removed. Penile tumors are found most frequently on the glans and prepuce. Large lesions can spread to the corpora cavernosa, or even on the abdominal wall. Penile cancers metastasize to the lymphatic channels preferably, either in the groin or in the pelvic lymph nodes. Rarely daughter cancer cells that migrate through the bloodstream to organs such as lung, liver, or (rarely) skeleton are known as distant metastases.