ArticleCancer medicine2026
Smoking, Alcohol, and Their Interaction in the Risk of Head and Neck Cancer: A Nationwide Cohort Study.
Article in Cancer medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Development and external validation of a nomogram for overall survival in oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma using machine learning-assisted feature selection.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the Naples Prognostic Score in Patients with Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma.Nutrients · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSmoking and alcohol drinking are established causes of head and neck cancer (HNC), yet their combined effect and variation by anatomic sub-site remain incompletely defined.
methodsWe followed 5,985,244 Korean adults (≥ 30 years) who attended National Health Insurance health screening in 2002-2003 until 31 December 2019. Smoking status (never, former, current) and alcohol intake (none, light, moderate, heavy) were self-reported at baseline. Incident HNC was ascertained from the national cancer registry. Sub-distribution hazard ratios (SHRs) were estimated with Fine-Gray competing-risk regression. Additive interaction was quantified by the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI), attributable proportion (AP), and synergy index (SI), and multiplicative interaction by a product term.
resultsDuring 76.5 million person-years of follow-up (mean 13-year follow-up), 13,491 HNC cases were recorded. Current smoking and heavy alcohol drinking independently increased HNC risk in a dose-response manner. Combined exposure to smoking and heavy drinking showed a supra-additive risk for HNC overall (SHR, 2.42; 95% CI, 2.28-2.56; RERI, 0.63; AP, 0.26; SI, 1.79), particularly for the oral cavity, oropharynx, nasal cavity/paranasal sinuses, and larynx. Significant multiplicative interactions were also observed in the oral cavity, oropharynx, and hypopharynx.
conclusionConcurrent cigarette smoking and heavy alcohol consumption synergistically elevate the risk of HNC across multiple subsites. Integrated public-health strategies targeting both behaviors are essential to reduce the HNC burden.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.