Impact Of Alcohol Consumption, Tobacco, & Smoking Upon Risk Of Oesophageal, Pharyngeal, And Oral Cancers In Indian Men

Abstract

Introduction- There are over one billion smokers in the world and among them, four million will die as a result of their habit. Methodology- This study was conducted at Geetanjali Dental and Research Institute, Udaipur during 2022-2025. The cases were 1,563 oral, 636 pharyngeal and 566 esophageal male cancer patients. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the sites under study were estimated according to smoking, chewing and alcohol habits using unconditional multiple logistic regression models. Interactions between the effects of the 3 habits were also assessed. Results- Tobacco chewing emerged as the stron- gest risk factor for oral cancer, with the highest odds ratio (OR) for chewing products containing tobacco of 5.05 [95% confidence internal (CI) 4.26 –5.97]. The strongest risk factor for pharyngeal and esophageal cancers was tobacco smoking, with ORs of 4.00 (95% CI 3.07–5.22) and 2.83 (95% CI 2.18 –3.66) in current smokers, respectively. An independent in- crease in risk was observed for each habit in the absence of the other 2. For example, the OR of oral cancers for alcohol drinking in never smokers and never chewers was 2.56 (95% CI 1.42– 4.64) and that of esophageal cancers was 3.41 (95% CI 1.46 –7.99).Conclusion- Furthermore, significant decreases in risks for all 3 cancer sites were observed in subjects who quit smoking even among those who had quit smoking 2– 4 years before the interview.