Alcohol consumption and the risk of bladder cancer in the Framingham Heart Study

The association between alcohol consumption and bladder cancer is controversial. We used data from 10 125 participants in the Framingham Heart Study to assess the association between total and beverage-specific alcohol consumption and the risk of bladder cancer. For each case of bladder cancer, up to five control subjects were selected and matched on major confounders using a risk set method. We used conditional logistic regression to assess the risk of bladder cancer according to categories of alcohol consumption. During a mean follow-up of 27.3 +/- 10.1 years, there were 126 incident cases of bladder cancer. There was no statistically significant association between alcohol consumption and risk of bladder cancer (P-trend = .3). In beverage-specific analyses, beer consumption was associated with a reduced risk of bladder cancer (P-trend = .03), whereas wine (P-trend = .7) and spirit (P-trend = .2) consumption were not. Our data suggest that total and beverage-specific alcohol consumption are not associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer.