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Review
. 2013;8(3):e58158.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058158. Epub 2013 Mar 1.

Alcohol drinking cessation and the risk of laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Aliasghar Ahmad Kiadaliri  1 , Johan Jarl, Georgios Gavriilidis, Ulf-G Gerdtham
Affiliations
Review

Alcohol drinking cessation and the risk of laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Aliasghar Ahmad Kiadaliri et al. PLoS One. 2013.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effect of alcohol cessation on the risk of developing laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers, combining available evidence in the scientific literature in a meta-analysis.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted, and a meta-analysis was applied on the retrieved studies. The generalised least squares method was used to estimate the trend from dose-response data to assess changes in the risks of laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers after drinking cessation.

Results: A total of 9 case-control studies were included in the meta-analysis (4 and 8 estimates for laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers, respectively). On average, alcohol drinking cessation was associated with a 2% yearly reduction in the risk of developing laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers. There was a considerable heterogeneity between the studies of pharyngeal cancer, but this was mostly due to two studies. The increased risk of laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers caused by alcohol was reversible; the time periods until the risks became equal to those of never drinkers were 36 (95% CI 11-106) and 39 (95% CI 13-103) years, respectively. Moreover, 5 years of drinking cessation was associated with a reduction of around 15% in the alcohol-related elevated risk of laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers.

Conclusion: Although a long time period is required to completely eliminate the alcohol-related elevated risk of laryngeal and pharyngeal cancers, a substantial risk reduction can be seen in the short term (5-10 years), and drinking cessation should therefore be encouraged to reduce the incidence of these cancers.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Flow diagram of literature search.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Risk of developing laryngeal cancer and pharyngeal cancer following drinking cessation.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Risk of developing laryngeal and pharyngeal cancer for never drinkers vs. current drinkers.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Risk decline of laryngeal and pharyngeal cancer over forty years after drinking cessation.
It should be noted that the risk is not expected to fall below that of never drinkers, even though the figures imply this.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

Financial support from the Swedish Research Council (dnr 2009–3094) is gratefully acknowledged. The Health Economics Program (HEP) at Lund University also receives core funding from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS; dnr. 2006-1660), the Government Grant for Clinical Research (ALF), and Region Skåne (Gerdtham). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.