[Alcohol consumption and epithelial cancer risk in the EPIC-Italy cohort]

Abstract

Objectives: to evaluate the association between baseline and lifetime alcohol consumption and the risk of epithelial cancer (all types) in the Italian cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and nutrition (EPIC) study.

Design: prospective study carried out in a large Italian population.

Setting and participants: detailed information on the consumption of alcoholic beverages at baseline and over lifetime collected at enrolment into the EPIC study (1993-1998) by standardised questionnaires for 44,477 healthy adults.

Main outcomes measures: 2,640 incident epithelial cancers identified during a mean follow-up of 11.4 years. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard models adjusted for several potential confounders were used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results: lifetime alcohol consumption (p for trend =0.005) was associated with epithelial cancer risk in the whole cohort. This effect was more evident in women (p =0.049) and in current smokers (p =0.012). Alcohol consumption at baseline was associated with the epithelial cancer risk in women (p for trend =0.01) and current smokers (p for trend =0.02). A significant interaction between alcohol consumption and smoke duration (p =0.015 for baseline; p =0.006 for lifetime) was identified.

Conclusions: in this large Italian population, alcohol consumption, particularly lifetime, is a significant risk factor for the development of epithelial cancers. This effect appears to be modulated by smoking habits.