Alcohol and Cancer Worldwide

Alcohol use can increase the risk of various cancers. Investigators in this study estimated the number of cancer cases and deaths attributable to alcohol drinking worldwide in 2002. They used data on drinking prevalence from the World Health Organization and relative risks of various cancers (oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum, larynx, and female breast) from recent meta- and pooled analyses.

• Worldwide, 389,100 cases of and 232,900 deaths from cancer were attributable to alcohol. These figures represent 3.6% of all cancer cases (5.2% in men, 1.7% in women) and 3.5% of all cancer deaths (5.1% in men, 1.3% in women), respectively.
• The proportion of alcohol-attributable cancers was particularly high (approximately 9%) among men in Central and Eastern Europe.
• The majority of cancer cases attributable to alcohol in men were of the upper digestive tract (oral cavity, pharynx, and esophagus), while the majority in women were of the breast.

Comments:

There are always problems trying to aggregate global data from many sources. A key concern is the lack of information on the health habits and drinking patterns of the individuals who developed cancer. Knowing this information can help provide much more precise estimates of alcohol’s effects on cancer than can these global estimates derived from limited data.

R. Curtis Ellison, MD

Reference:

Boffetta P, Hashibe M, La Vecchia C, et al. The burden of cancer attributable to alcohol drinking. Int J Cancer. 2006;119(4):884–887.