Epidemiological Evidence on the Relation between Coffee Intake and the Risk of Head and Neck Cancer

About 30 epidemiological studies have investigated the role of coffee in the risk of head and neck cancers. A meta-analysis combined data published up to 2009 on such a relation, using a meta-analytic approach. For oral and pharyngeal cancer, the pooled relative risk (RR) was 0.64 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.51-0.80) for the highest versus lowest coffee drinking, based on more than 2500 cases, with no significant heterogeneity across studies. The corresponding pooled RR for laryngeal cancer was 1.56 (95% CI 0.60-4.02). An update of the meta-analysis up to February 2013 confirmed a possible favorable role of high coffee consumption on oral and pharyngeal cancer, with a pooled RR of 0.72 (95% CI 0.59-0.87), based on about 7000 cases. A real favorable role of coffee in the etiology of oral and pharyngeal cancer is supported by dose-exposure relations and the consistency of results in different settings, populations, and strata of major covariates.