The Epidemiology of Lip, Oral, and Pharyngeal Cancers, and the Association with Selected Systemic Diseases

Abstract

The hypothesis that cancers are associated with more generalized systemic diseases was epidemiologically investigated; diseases considered were diabetes mellitus, liver cirrhosis, chronic alcoholism, generalized arteriosclerosis and syphilis. A sample of 2177 males with oral, pharyngeal or lip cancers was compared with the utilization and discharge rates in Veterans Hospitals, the U. S. veteran''s and white male populations, and 2 control groups; it was also characterized by age, anatomical site, race and geography. Mouth floor and salivary gland cancers were highly correlated geographically with the distribution of veterans and white males in the U. S. Lip cancers, while extremely rare in Negroes, occurred with unusual frequency among white males, especially those living in the South and West; other cancers were not selective for race. An association was found only between liver cirrhosis and mouth floor cancer. This was decidedly manifest with 2 control diseases and also on applying prevalence rates of liver cirrhosis in hospitals with different bed capacities to cases and controls from the same hospitals. Neither bias nor artifacts of the data could explain the association. Hence, the association appears to be genuine and dependent upon the pathogenesis of the condition.