Background: There is some evidence that alcohol consumption is inversely associated with renal cell cancer (RCC), but the issue is still unclear.
Patients and methods: We investigated the relation using data from two Italian multicentric case-control studies conducted from 1985 to 2004, including a total of 1115 incident, histologically confirmed cases and 2582 controls hospitalised with acute, non-neoplastic conditions.
Results: Compared with non-drinkers, the multivariate odds ratios (ORs) of RCC were 0.87 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.73-1.04] for <or=4 drinks per day, 0.76 (95% CI 0.59-0.99) for >4 to <or=8 drinks per day and 0.70 (95% CI 0.50-0.97) for >8 drinks per day of alcoholic beverages, with a significant inverse trend in risk (P value = 0.01). The ORs were 0.85 (95% CI 0.71-1.02) for wine, 0.84 (95% CI 0.68-1.03) for beer and 0.86 (95% CI 0.70-1.05) for spirits consumption, as compared with abstainers. No trend in risk of RCC emerged with duration (P value = 0.94) and age at starting alcohol consumption (P value = 0.81). Results were consistent in men and women, as well as in strata of age, smoking and body mass index.
Conclusions: This pooled analysis found an inverse association between alcohol drinking and RCC. Risks continued to decrease even above eight drinks per day (i.e. >100 g/day) of alcohol intake, with no apparent levelling in risk.