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Association of history of allergies and influenza-like infections with laryngeal cancer in a case–control study

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A Letter to the Editor to this article was published on 27 February 2015

Abstract

Prior studies suggest that history of allergy and infections early in life might be inversely associated with cancer. We explored the association between allergies, recent influenza infections and laryngeal cancer risk. We used data from a case–control study which included 229 cases of laryngeal cancer and 769 population controls matched for age and sex. History of a physician-diagnosed allergy, influenza-like infections in the past 5 years, smoking, alcohol consumption and occupational exposure to carcinogens were self-reported. Allergies were classified into two groups (Type I and Type IV), according to the underlying immunologic mechanism. Conditional logistic regression models were fitted using laryngeal cancer as the outcome, adjusting for smoking, alcohol consumption and occupational exposure and stratified for age and sex. Having any allergy was not associated significantly with laryngeal cancer. Although Type I and Type IV allergies were non-significantly associated with laryngeal cancer, Type IV allergies showed a strong inverse association after adjusting for smoking and alcohol (OR 0.50, 95 % CI 0.22–1.2). Participants who reported at least one influenza-like infection during the past 5 years were significantly less likely to have laryngeal cancer (OR 0.57, 95 % CI 0.39–0.81). After considering fever (≥38.5 °C) as a criterion for influenza infection, the association between influenza infection and laryngeal cancer was even stronger (OR 0.29, 95 % CI 0.13–0.63). We found no significant association between any allergy and laryngeal cancer, some indication of an inverse association between Type IV allergy and laryngeal cancer, whereas recent influenza infections were inversely associated with laryngeal cancer risk.

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Acknowledgments

Ethical clearance was given by the Ethical Committee of the Heidelberg University. We acknowledge the contribution of patients and controls and of the team of interviewers and data base managers. The study would not have been possible without the cooperation of clinicians from the following clinics: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University of Heidelberg; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University of Mannheim; Medical Hospital, Head and Neck Surgery, Heilbronn; Medical Hospital, Head and Neck Surgery, Ludwigshafen; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Academic Teaching Hospital, Darmstadt. This study was supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research; Grant number: 01GB9702/3 and by Dietmar Hopp Stiftung GmbH St. Leon-Rot; Grant number: 23011184.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 324, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Filippos T. Filippidis, Heiko Becher & Heribert Ramroth

  2. Epidemiology Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA

    Stephen M. Schwartz

  3. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Stephen M. Schwartz

  4. Division of Cancer Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Cancer, Heidelberg, Germany

    Nikolaus Becker

  5. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Gerhard Dyckhoff

  6. Institute for Immunology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Michael Kirschfink

  7. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Andreas Dietz

  8. University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

    Heiko Becher

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  1. Filippos T. Filippidis
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  2. Stephen M. Schwartz
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Correspondence to Filippos T. Filippidis.

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Filippidis, F.T., Schwartz, S.M., Becker, N. et al. Association of history of allergies and influenza-like infections with laryngeal cancer in a case–control study. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 272, 2063–2069 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-015-3528-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-015-3528-6

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