Alcohol consumption and cancer risk

Bottom line
Alcohol consumption is associated with increased risk of some, but not all cancers, most notably cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx, oesophagus, larynx, breast and liver.

Reference
V Bagnardi et al. A meta-analysis of alcohol drinking and cancer risk. British Journal of Cancer 2001 85: 1700-1705.
Search
The literature was searched using several bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, Current Contents, Embase, CAB Abstracts and Core Biomedical Collection) from 1966 to 2000. References from identified papers, literature reviews and other meta-analyses were also examined and the most relevant epidemiological and medical journals were manually checked. Included were case-control or cohort studies published as original articles, reporting odds ratios or relative risks for at least three levels of alcohol consumption.

A total of 235 studies with 117,471 cases were identified. Of these, 187 were case-control and 48 were cohort. Eighteen cancer sites were investigated or all cancers irrespective of site. For each site, the number of studies varied from one to 49 and the number of cases ranged from 81 to 44,033. For melanoma and cancers of the small intestine, gallbladder, cervix and kidney, the risk estimates were based on only one or two studies. Three levels of alcohol consumption were examined: 25 g a day, 50 g a day and 100 g a day (25 g corresponds to approximately 2 drinks a day).