Food groups and risk of squamous cell esophageal cancer in northern Italy

To better understand the nutritional etiology of squamous cell esophageal c ancer, we conducted a case-control study in 3 areas of northern Italy. A to tal of 304 incident, histologically confirmed cases of squamous cell carcin oma of the esophagus (275 men, 29 women) and 743 hospital controls (593 men , 150 women) with acute, non-neoplastic conditions, not related to smoking, alcohol consumption or long-term diet modification, were interviewed durin g 1992 to 1997, The validated food-frequency questionnaire included 78 ques tions on food items or recipes, which were then categorized into 19 main fo od groups, and 10 questions on fat intake pattern. After allowance for age, sex, education, area of residence, tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking and n on-alcohol energy, a significant increased risk emerged for high consumptio n of soups (OR=2.1 for the highest vs. lowest quintile), whereas inverse as sociations with esophageal cancer risk were observed for pasta and rice (OR =0.7), poultry (OR=0.4), raw vegetables (OR=0.3), citrus fruit (OR=0.4) and other fruit (OR=0.5). The associations with dietary habits were consistent in different strata of tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking. Among added l ipids, olive oil intake showed a significant reduction of esophageal cancer risk, even after allowance for total vegetable consumption (OR=0.4), while butter consumption was directly associated with this risk (OR=2.2). Our re sults thus provide further support to the evidence that raw vegetables and citrus fruit are inversely related to the risk of squamous cell esophageal cancer and suggest that olive oil may also reduce this risk. Int. J. Cancer 87:289-294, 2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.