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Cigarette smoking is more strongly associated with an increased risk for head and neck cancers than alcohol consumption, according to study results published in the May 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Previous research has shown that a combination of tobacco and alcohol consumption is responsible for at least 75 percent of all cases of head and neck cancers. A team from the International Agency for Cancer Research in Lyon, France, undertook a study to determine the independent effect of each of these risk factors, examining head and neck cancer risk among smokers who never drank and alcohol users who had never smoked.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from 15 case-control studies that included 10,244 head and neck cancer patients and 15,227 controls. Approximately 16 percent of the cancer patients and 27 percent of the controls never drank alcohol compared to 11 percent and 38 percent, respectively, for cigarette use.

The team found that cigarette smoking was associated with an increased risk for head and neck cancer—particularly laryngeal cancer—among patients who had never consumed alcohol, accounting for about 24 percent of all head and neck cancers.

Consuming alcohol, however, was associated with increased head and neck cancer risk mainly for subjects who drank three or more drinks a day. These subjects, who doubled their risk for head and neck cancers, accounted for 7 percent of all such cancers.