Risk factors for the gastric cardia cancer: a case-control study in Fujian Province

AIM: The incidence of gastric cardia cancer has greatly increased in the past 2-3 decades, however, the risk factors for the disease are still not clearly understood. The investigations among Chinese population on the risk factors of gastric cardia cancer were also scarcely reported. We therefore conducted a case-control study in Fujian province, China, to investigate the potential risk and protective factors of this disease. METHODS: 191 cardia and 190 non-cardia gastric cancer cases, and a total of 222 control cases were included in this study. Standard questionnaires were used in collecting epidemiological factors and the data were then analyzed by the unconditional logistic regression model. RESULTS: As the factors such as age, gender, smoking, alcohol consumption, and family history of gastric cancer were controlled, a multivariable analysis was conducte, which revealed that there was a significant correlation between the dietary habits such as irregular meal, over and fast eating, and the gastric cardia cancer with the odds ratios (ORs) of 4.2 (95 % confidence interval: 2.3-7.7), 4.7 (2.1-10.8), and 2.7 (1.3-5.3) respectively. Other correlations were also observed between the gastric cardia cancer and the consumption of salty fish or pickled vegetable, smoking, and the family cancer history with the ORs of 5.5 (1.4-19.5), 1.8 (1.0-3.0), 2.1 (1.3-3.5), and 3.8 (2.3-6.2) respectively. In contrast, the negative correlations were found existing between the intake of fresh vegetables and fruits, the use of refrigerator, and the gastric cardia cancer, with the ORs of 0.4 (0.2-0.9), 0.2 (0.1-0.5), and 0.2 (0.1-0.4), respectively. However, dietary habits were associated less with non-cardia gastric cancer compared with its cardia counterpart. CONCLUSION: Dietary habits might be one of the risk factors for the cardia carcinogenesis among Chinese population.