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Recreational physical activity and risk of head and neck cancer: a pooled analysis within the international head and neck cancer epidemiology (INHANCE) Consortium

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An Erratum to this article was published on 08 October 2011

Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that physical activity could prevent cancer, but scanty data is available on head and neck cancer (HNC). The aim of our study is to clarify the effect of recreational physical activity (rPA) on HNC. We analyzed data from four case–control studies, including 2,289 HNC cases and 5,580 controls. rPA was classified as: none/low (reference group), moderate and high. We calculated summary Odds Ratios (ORs) by pooling study-specific ORs. Overall, moderate rPA was associated with 22% lower risk of HNC compared to those with none or very low rPA levels [OR = 0.78, 95% Confidence Interval (95% CI): 0.66, 0.91]. Moderate rPA is associated with reduced risk of oral (OR = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.56, 0.97) and pharyngeal cancer (OR = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.53, 0.85), as well as high rPA levels (OR = 0.53, 95% CI: 0.32, 0.88 for oral cavity, OR = 0.58, 95% CI: 0.38, 0.89 for pharynx). High rPA levels, however, is associated with higher risk of laryngeal cancer (OR = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.04, 2.88). Stratified analyses showed that such inverse association between moderate rPA and HNC was more evident among males (OR = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.62, 0.90), subjects ≥45 years (OR = 0.78, 95% CI: 0.66, 0.93), and ever smokers and ever drinkers (OR = 0.72, 95% CI: 0.59, 0.88). High rPA significantly reduces HNC risk among subject ≥45 years (OR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.48, 0.91). Promoting rPA might be inversely associated with HNC.

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Abbreviations

CI:

Confidence interval

HNC:

Head and neck cancer

INHANCE:

International head and neck cancer epidemiology

OR:

Odds ratio

PA:

Physical activity

PF:

Preventable fraction

rPA:

Recreational physical activity

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Genetic Epidemiology and Public Health Genomics Unit, Institute of Hygiene, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, L.go F. Vito, 1-00168, Rome, Italy

    Nicola Nicolotti, Dario Arzani, Gualtiero Ricciardi & Stefania Boccia

  2. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Shu-Chun Chuang

  3. Institute of Otorhinolaryngology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy

    Gabriella Cadoni, Livia Petrelli & Gaetano Paludetti

  4. Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Cristina Bosetti & Carlo La Vecchia

  5. Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Aging Research, Germany-Saarland Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Saarland, Germany

    Hermann Brenner & Heiko Müller

  6. Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan

    Satoyo Hosono & Keitaro Matsuo

  7. Department of Occupational Health, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Carlo La Vecchia

  8. Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA

    Joshua Muscat

  9. The Tisch Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Paolo Boffetta

  10. International Prevention Research Institute, Lyon, France

    Paolo Boffetta

  11. Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Mia Hashibe

  12. San Raffaele Pisana, Rome, Italy

    Stefania Boccia

Authors
  1. Nicola Nicolotti
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  2. Shu-Chun Chuang
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  3. Gabriella Cadoni
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  7. Hermann Brenner
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  8. Satoyo Hosono
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  11. Heiko Müller
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  12. Joshua Muscat
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  14. Gualtiero Ricciardi
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  15. Paolo Boffetta
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  16. Mia Hashibe
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  17. Stefania Boccia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefania Boccia.

Additional information

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10654-011-9616-z

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Nicolotti, N., Chuang, SC., Cadoni, G. et al. Recreational physical activity and risk of head and neck cancer: a pooled analysis within the international head and neck cancer epidemiology (INHANCE) Consortium. Eur J Epidemiol 26, 619–628 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-011-9612-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-011-9612-3

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