Opium Use and Risk of Pancreatic Cancer: A Prospective Cohort Study

• Published in: Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 268 - 273
• Main Authors: Moossavi, Shirin, Mohamadnejad, Mehdi, Pourshams, Akram, Poustchi, Hossein, Islami, Farhad, Sharafkhah, Maryam, Mirminachi, Babak, Nasseri-Moghaddam, Siavosh, Semnani, Shahryar, Shakeri, Ramin, Etemadi, Arash, Merat, Shahin, Khoshnia, Masoud, Dawsey, Sanford M, Pharoah, Paul D, Brennan, Paul, Abnet, Christian C, Boffetta, Paolo, Kamangar, Farin, Malekzadeh, Reza
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for Cancer Research, Inc 01-03-2018
• Subjects: Adult; Cigarette smoking; Cohort analysis; Female; Health risk assessment; Health risks; Humans; Incidence; Iran - epidemiology; Male; Middle Aged; Opium Dependence - epidemiology; Pancreatic cancer; Pancreatic Neoplasms - epidemiology; Prospective Studies; Regression analysis; Risk Factors; Self Report - statistics & numerical data; Sensitivity analysis; Smoking; Iran
• ISSN: 1055-9965; 1538-7755
• DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-17-0592

We examined the association between opium consumption and pancreatic cancer incidence in a large-scale prospective cohort of the general population in northeastern Iran.
A total of 50,045 adults were systematically followed up (median of 7.4 years), and incident cases of pancreatic cancer were identified. Self-reported data on opium consumption was collected at baseline. Cumulative use (-year) was defined as number of nokhods (a local unit, approximately 0.2 g) of opium consumed per day multiplied by number of years consuming. Adjusted HRs and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between opium consumption and pancreatic cancer were calculated using Cox proportional hazards regression models.
Overall, 54 confirmed cases of pancreatic cancer were identified. Opium use of more than 81 nokhod-years (high cumulative use), compared with never use, was strongly associated with pancreatic cancer even after adjustments for multiple potential confounding factors [HR = 3.01; 95% CI, 1.25-7.26]. High cumulative consumption of opium was significantly associated with risk of pancreatic cancer after adjusting for cumulative dose of cigarette smoking [HR = 3.56; 95% CI, 1.49-8.50]. In a sensitivity analysis, we excluded participants (including 2 pancreatic cancer cases) who were recruited within the first 5 years of starting opium consumption; high cumulative use of opium was still associated with pancreatic cancer risk [HR = 2.75; 95% CI, 1.14-6.64].
Our results showed a positive association between opium consumption and pancreatic cancer.
This is the first prospective large-scale study to show the association of opium consumption with pancreatic cancer as a risk factor.
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