Processed Meat and Colorectal Cancer Risk: A Pooled Analysis of Three Italian Case-Control Studies

ABSTRACT

To add evidence to the limited data available from southern Europe, we assessed the association between processed meat consumption and colorectal cancer risk. We analyzed data from three case-control studies conducted between 1985 and 2010 in various Italian areas, including a total of 3745 incident cases and 6804 hospital-based controls. We calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) by unconditional multiple logistic regression models. The median consumption of processed meat was around 20 g/day both in cases and controls. The OR of colorectal cancer was 1.02 (95% CI 0.99–1.04) for an increase of 10 g/day of processed meat. The association was statistically significant for colon cancer (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.00–1.06), particularly for proximal colon cancer (OR 1.09, 95% CI 1.04–1.14), while there was no relation with rectal cancer (OR 0.99, 95% CI 0.95–1.03). The OR of proximal colon cancer was 1.38 (95% CI 1.08–1.75) for the highest sex-specific tertile of consumption (>25 g/day for men, >21.5 for women) compared with the lowest (<15 g/day), whereas no significant ORs were found for other anatomical subsites. Our findings indicate that there is no association with colorectal cancer overall, in the presence, however, of a positive association with proximal colon cancer.

Funding

This work was conducted within grants by the Italian Foundation for Cancer Research (FIRC), and the Italian Ministry of Health, General Directorate of European and International Relations, and received unconditional support by ASSICA. The sponsors had no role in the study design, data collection implementation, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to publish.