bmj.com Rapid Responses for Foulkes et al., 313 (7059) 716-721

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William D Foulkes, Jean-Sebastien Brunet, Weiva Sieh, Martin J Black, George Shenouda, and Steven A Narod
Familial risks of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck: retrospective case-control study
BMJ 1996; 313: 716-721 [Abstract] [Full text]

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Risk factors for head and neck carcinoma: MURAT Enoz (22 May 2005)

Risk factors for head and neck carcinoma 22 May 2005

MURAT Enoz,
Department of Otolaryngology, Head&Neck Surgery
Istanbul University, School of Medicine, Turkey
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Re: Risk factors for head and neck carcinoma

Dear Editor
There have been several reports of a rising incidence of head and neck cancer from many parts of the world. Although it is well known that head and neck cancer increases with age.
Information on many aspects of aetiology for this disease occupational, familial risk, immune deficits and virus infection are meagre.
It has been suggested that patients without typical risk factors for developing SCC of the head and neck may have a worse prognosis compared with patients with the usual risk factors such as a history of excessive tobacco and alcohol use.
In explaining some of the inconsistencies between the literat�res it is possible that the small sample sizes in addition to the differing and lengthy duration of treatment may have been responsible for the discord in the literature. It would have been of merit to take into account tumour stage and site, type of treatment and a more comprehensive examination of risk factors when considering true age survival rates of patients with head and neck cancer.
Tobacco and alcohol have long been implicated as the traditional risk factors for oral cancer in adults of any age. Tobacco, whether smoked, chewed or traken as snuff, is undoubtedly a major carcinogen causing both initiation and promotion of head and neck cancer(1, 2, 3, 4).
Occupation as a risk factor has been studied to a lesser extent. Epidemiological evidence exists for an association between workers exposed to formaldehyde(5, 6, 7, 8), and other manual workers such as printers (9, 10), electronics workers (11, 12), textile workers etc (13, 14) and an increased risk of head and neck cancer.
Dr. Murat Enoz
References
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Competing interests: None declared