Nutritional and environmental risk factors of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Morocco

Abstract

15535 Background: The nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has a high incidence in north Africa and in southeast Asia. The goal of this study is to analyze the implication of nutritional and environmental factors in the raise of this cancer. Methods: It is a retrospective investigation with 274 affected by the NPC and 394 witnesses. Results: The nasopharyngeal carcinoma affects mens more then womens with a sex ratio of 1.8. We observed a peak between 20 and 29 years with the women and between 40 and 49 years with the men. We noted also a high frequency of the young population touched by this disease: 10.5% less than 20 years old, which was also observed in Tunisia, Algeria and Sudan while the young patients are rarerly affected in the Asian southeast. The patients have mostly rural origin with agricultural parents, having lived during their childhood in precarious habitat and hygiene conditions and with an instruction level generally low, often without function or exercising in the primary or secondary sector. The study of nutritional and environmental risk factors showed a statistically meaningful relation between this cancer and some factors bound to the food: consumption of pickle, of smen (butter fermented), and to the environment: life in agricultural environment, practice of the farm, absence of drinkable water and contact with toxic substances. Conclusions: It seems that the exposition to environmental risk factors could increase the risk to contract this cancer, especially with the already exposed persons to nutritional risk factors. We observed a territorial variability of the exposition to the NPC risk factors that explains the gradient south north of the incidence of this cancer in Morocco. The results of this study show the complexity of factors being able to take to a cancerogenesis. No significant financial relationships to disclose.