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Frontiers of Medicine >> 2010, Volume 4, Issue 4 doi: 10.1007/s11684-010-0280-6

Alcohol and tea consumption in relation to the risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Guangdong, China

1.State Key Laboratory of Oncology in Southern China, Guangzhou 510060, China;School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; 2.State Key Laboratory of Oncology in Southern China, Guangzhou 510060, China;Department of Experiment Research, Sun Yat-sen University, Cancer Center, Guangzhou 510060, China; 3.State Key Laboratory of Oncology in Southern China, Guangzhou 510060, China;School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China;Department of Experiment Research, Sun Yat-sen University, Cancer Center, Guangzhou 510060, China;

Available online: 2010-12-05

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Abstract

To investigate whether alcohol and tea consumption has an etiological association with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in a high-incident population, a large scale case-control study was conducted. The study included 2846 individuals in Guangdong Province, China, with 1387 newly diagnosed cases of NPC and 1459 frequency-matched controls. Exposure histories of alcohol and tea consumption were obtained via personal interviews. Information regarding socio-demographic characteristics (age, sex, education, dialect and household type), family history of NPC, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, dietary habits and other potential confounding factors was also studied. An analysis was performed using unconditional logistic regression to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). The risk of NPC was found to be associated with habitual alcohol consumption and tea consumption. Tea consumption has been associated with a decreased occurrence of NPC (OR= 0.62), while consumption of alcohol was associated with a complex effect. Specifically, moderate consumption of alcohol was associated with decreased risk of NPC, while overuse, especially strong distillate spirits, appeared to be a risk factor.

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