Influences of cigarette smoking and Helicobacter pylori infection on the development of gastric cancer

We assessed the separate and joint influences of cigarette smoking and Helicobacter pylori infection on the development of gastric cancer in a population-based prospective study of Japanese men. The multivariate-adjusted risk of gastric cancer  was significantly higher in current smokers than in current nonsmokers. The risk of gastric cancer increased steeply for men who had both a smoking habit and Helicobacter pylori infection compared with those who did not have both risk factors. If causal, the estimated population attributable fraction of gastric cancer for cigarette smoking was approximately half that for Helicobacter pylori infection (28.4% vs. 56.2%). The findings of our paper suggest that cigarette smoking and Helicobacter pylori infection are importantt risk factors for gastric cancer in Japanese men. The magnitude of their combined influence is considerable.

Bibliographic Reference

Shikata K et al.: "Population-based prospective study of the combined influence of cigarette smoking and Helicobacter pylori infection on gastric cancer incidence: the Hisayama Study", Am J Epidemiol. 2008 Dec 15;168(12):1409-15

Yutaka Kiyohara

Department of Environmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka,  Japan