Association between gastric cardia adenocarcinoma risk and alcohol flushing response, but not alcohol consumption

The relationship between the development of gastric cardia cancer (GCA) and alcohol consumption remains unclear. Alcohol flushing response reflects an accumulation of the carcinogenic acetaldehyde and has been proved to be a risk factor for many cancers. The main objective of the present study was to assess the impact of alcohol flushing response on GCA risk in a Chinese population in conjunction with lifetime alcohol consumption. The study subjects consist of 281 male patients [130 with GCA and 151 with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC)] and 160 non-cancer male controls, matched with respect to age. Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CI). There is no significant association between GCA risk and alcohol consumption. However, the adjusted ORs for flushing response of GCA and ESCC was 2.03 (95 % CI 1.15–3.56, p = 0.014) and 2.32 (95 % CI 1.34–4.03, p = 0.003), respectively, compared with those reporting no flushing response. Furthermore, compared with non-drinkers, the heavy drinkers and moderate drinkers with current/former flushing response experienced significant GCA risk (heavy drinkers: OR 2.59, 95 % CI 1.06–6.31, p = 0.037; moderate drinkers: OR 3.11, 95 % CI 1.17–8.26, p = 0.023), while drinkers without flushing response did not have increased risk. The drinkers with flushing response also had a higher ESCC risk than those without flushing response. In conclusion, alcohol flushing response is a clinically useful biomarker of susceptibility to GCA and ESCC risk from alcohol.