Alcohol intake and renal cell cancer risk: a meta-analysis
British Journal of Cancer, 04/25/2012  Clinical Article

Song DY et al. – The findings from our meta-analysis support the hypothesis that alcoholic beverage intake is inversely associated with a lower risk of renal cell cancer, with moderate consumption conferring the protection and higher consumption conferring no additional benefits.

• We examined the association between alcoholic beverages and renal cell cancer risk in a meta-analysis.
• We identified relevant studies by searching the database of PubMed, EMBASE, and MEDLINE published through August 2011.
• We combined the study-specific relative risks (RRs) using a random-effects model.

• A total of 20 case–control studies, 3 cohort studies, and 1 pooled analysis of cohort studies were included in the meta-analysis.
• We observed that alcoholic beverage intake was associated with a lower risk of renal cell cancer in combined analysis of case–control and cohort studies; for total alcoholic beverage intake, combined RRs (95% confidence intervals) comparing top with bottom categories were 0.76 (0.68–0.85) in case–control studies, and 0.71 (0.63–0.78) in cohort studies (P for difference by study design=0.02).
• The inverse associations were observed for both men and women and for each specific type alcoholic beverage (beer, wine, and liquor).
• Also, we found that one drink per day of alcoholic beverage conferred the reduction in renal cell cancer risk, but further drinking above that level did not add benefit.