Ulf Gerdtham
Professor
Time characteristics of the effect of alcohol cessation on the risk of stomach cancer a meta-analysis
Author
Summary, in English
Background: In the Bagnardi et al. (2001) meta-analysis, it was found that alcohol consumption increases the risk of stomach cancer (OR = 1.32 for heavy drinkers). However, it is unknown if drinking cessation reverses this alcohol-elevated risk. Methods: A systematic literature review was performed to provide the information for a meta-analysis where the dose-risk trend was estimated for years since drinking cessation and the risk of stomach cancer. A random effect generalised least squares model for trend estimation was used, employing study characteristics to control for heterogeneity. Results: Nineteen observational studies were identified in the literature review, of which five studies quantified duration of cessation and risk of stomach cancer, giving a total of 1947 cancer cases. No significant effect of drinking cessation on the risk of stomach cancer could be found (OR = 0.99 CI: 0.97-1.02). Conclusions: This result should be interpreted with caution due to the limited number of studies in this area. Recent findings suggest a link between heavy drinking and stomach cancer, especially gastric noncardia, but not for moderate drinking. Since all but one of the included studies in this meta-analysis failed to control for consumption level, the current study could not test if the risk decline following drinking cessation differs between moderate and high consumers.
Department/s
- Health Economics
- Department of Economics
- EpiHealth: Epidemiology for Health
Publishing year
2013
Language
English
Publication/Series
BMC Public Health
Volume
13
Full text
- Available as PDF - 332 kB
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Document type
Journal article
Publisher
BioMed Central (BMC)
Topic
- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology
Keywords
- Alcohol cessation
- Stomach cancer
- Meta-analysis
Status
Published
Research group
- Health Economics
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1471-2458