Abstract
Although alcohol consumption has been recognized as a risk factor for primary liver cancer, it will be informative to summarize relevant epidemiologic data in the Japanese who have characteristic environmental determinants (e.g. hepatitis C virus infection) and genetic traits (e.g. presence of poor acetaldehyde metabolizers). We systematically reviewed epidemiologic studies on alcohol drinking and liver cancer among Japanese populations. Original data were obtained through searches of the MEDLINE (PubMed) and Ichushi databases, complemented with manual searches. The evaluation was performed in terms of the magnitude of association ('strong', 'moderate', 'weak' or 'no association') in each study and the strength of evidence ('convincing', 'probable', 'possible' or 'insufficient'), together with biological plausibility as previously assessed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Among 22 cohort studies identified, 14 (64%) reported weak to strong positive associations between alcohol and liver cancer risk, 3 (14%) reported no association and five (23%) reported weak to moderate inverse associations; such inverse associations were found mostly in follow-up studies of patients with chronic liver disease (particularly, cirrhotic patients), yet recent studies on patients with chronic hepatitis C presented fairly consistent positive associations. Of 24 case-control studies identified, 19 (79%) showed weak to strong positive associations, whereas the remainder demonstrated no association (n = 4) or a moderate inverse association (n = 1). We conclude that there is 'convincing' evidence that alcohol drinking increases the risk of primary liver cancer among the Japanese population.
Highlights
Alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus and liver (1), its relationship with lung cancer still remains controversial
Japanese may be more susceptible to alcohol in terms of carcinogenesis because the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) Glu487Lys polymorphism is more common in Japanese than in Western populations (5,6)
The 487Lys allele results in a lower ALDH2 activity and a higher blood concentration of acetaldehyde (5), which is the initial metabolite of alcohol shown to be carcinogenic in animal experiments (7)
Summary
Alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus and liver (1), its relationship with lung cancer still remains controversial. Korte and coworkers (3) indicated, based on their meta-analysis, that after controlling for cigarette smoking, evidence of an association between alcohol consumption and lung cancer is largely limited to groups consuming 2000 g of ethanol per month (2.9 Japanese drinks [gou] per day). Freudenheim et al (4) found a 21 and 16% greater risk of lung cancer for the drinkers of 30 g alcohol per day than that for non-drinkers in men and women, respectively, in a pooled analysis of cohort studies.
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