Increases in laryngeal cancer in Britain and Australia in relation to alcohol and tobacco consumption trends

Abstract

The incidence of laryngeal and oesophageal cancers has recently risen in Britain and Australia, particularly in younger people, after many decades of steady decline. In view of accruing evidence that head-and-neck cancers are causally related to alcohol and tobacco consumption, particularly in combination, it seems that the upsurge in consumption of alcohol and cigarettes after the 1939-45 war is now reflected in the increases in these two cancers, particularly in young women. The time-trends in sex-specific mortality from cancers of the larynx and oesophagus throughout this century, in both Britain and Australia, show strong correlations with alcohol consumption. By reference to inter-country differences in consumption trends, to differences in consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, to sex differences in cigarette consumption, to trends in types of alcoholic drink consumed, and to the mortality experienced of successive generations, the evidence that alcohol is causally related to laryngeal cancer is strengthened.