Environmental tobacco smoke and laryngeal cancer: results from a population-based case–control study

Information is lacking on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and the risk of laryngeal cancer. We performed a population-based case–control study conducted in Germany, with 257 cases and 769 controls. ETS exposure was assessed from spouse/partner, working history and childhood. The odds ratio (OR) for ETS exposure (binary) in all individuals was 1.2 (95% CI 0.77–1.8), controlled for active smoking, alcohol consumption and education. For the continuous variable of lifetime exposure hours to spouse/partner, we found an OR of 1.2 (95% CI 1.0–1.4) for lifelong exposure of 20,000 h. Since laryngeal cancer is relatively rare and since most cases are (ex-)smokers, studies with sufficient power to investigate the effect of ETS in nonsmokers are difficult to perform. Our findings are in line with the hypothesis that ETS increases the risk of laryngeal cancer. Meta-analyses based on subgroups of nonsmokers from earlier studies are warranted to confirm our findings.