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A pooled analysis of case–control studies of thyroid cancer: cigarette smoking and consumption of alcohol, coffee, and tea

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Abstract

Objective: To analyze the role of smoking, alcohol, coffee and tea in relation to thyroid cancer, we conducted a pooled analysis of 14 case–control studies conducted in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Methods: The sample consisted of 2725 thyroid cancer cases (2247 females, 478 males) and 4776 controls (3699 females, 1077 males). Conditional logistic regression with stratification on study, age at diagnosis, and gender was used to compute odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Results: Thyroid cancer risk was reduced in persons who had ever smoked. The relationship was more pronounced in current smokers (OR = 0.6, 95% CI = 0.6–0.7) than former smokers (OR = 0.9, 95% CI = 0.8–1.1). There were significant trends of reduced risk with greater duration and frequency of smoking. For consumption of wine and beer, there was a significant trend of decreasing thyroid cancer risk (p = 0.02) that was not maintained after adjustment for current smoking (p = 0.12). Thyroid cancer risk was not associated with consumption of coffee or tea. These findings were consistent in both gender-specific and histology-specific (papillary and follicular) analyses. Conclusions: Pooled analyses of these geographically diverse case–control data indicate a reduced thyroid cancer risk associated with current smoking. A reduced risk associated with alcohol was eliminated after adjustment for smoking, and caffeinated beverages did not alter thyroid cancer risk.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1540 Alcazar Street, CHP-218, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Wendy J. Mack

  2. Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Susan Preston-Martin & Min Xiang

  3. Servizio di Epidemiologia, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, Aviano, Italy

    Luigino Dal Maso

  4. Centre for Tobacco Prevention, Huddinge, Sweden

    Rosaria Galanti

  5. International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France

    Silvia Franceschi

  6. Department of Oncology–Pathology, Karolinska Institute, Radiumhemmet, SE-171 76, Stockholm, Sweden

    Arne Hallquist

  7. Shanghai Cancer Institute, Shanghai, People's Republic of China

    Fan Jin

  8. Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

    Laurence Kolonel

  9. Istituto di Biometria e Statistica Medica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Carlo La Vecchia

  10. Unité d'épidémiologie du cancer, Registre Vaudois de Tumeurs, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Fabio Levi

  11. Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, Athens Medical School, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Athena Linos

  12. Institute for Community Medicine, University of Tromsö, Tromsö, Norway

    Eiliv Lund

  13. Cancer Prevention Research Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    Anne McTiernan

  14. Radiation Epidemiology Branch, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

    Kiyohiko Mabuchi & Elaine Ron

  15. Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Milan, Italy

    Eva Negri

  16. Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linkoping University, Linkoping, Sweden

    Gun Wingren

Authors
  1. Wendy J. Mack
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  2. Susan Preston-Martin
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  3. Luigino Dal Maso
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  4. Rosaria Galanti
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  5. Min Xiang
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  6. Silvia Franceschi
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  7. Arne Hallquist
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  8. Fan Jin
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  9. Laurence Kolonel
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  10. Carlo La Vecchia
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  11. Fabio Levi
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  12. Athena Linos
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  13. Eiliv Lund
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  14. Anne McTiernan
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  15. Kiyohiko Mabuchi
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  16. Eva Negri
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  17. Gun Wingren
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  18. Elaine Ron
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Mack, W.J., Preston-Martin, S., Dal Maso, L. et al. A pooled analysis of case–control studies of thyroid cancer: cigarette smoking and consumption of alcohol, coffee, and tea. Cancer Causes Control 14, 773–785 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026349702909

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026349702909

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