Patterns of tobacco use in patients with upper aero digestive tract cancers: A hospital-based study.

Background: Tobacco use is a major risk factor for increasing the burden of upper aero digestive tract (UADT) cancer in the population of Northeast India.

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the pattern of tobacco use in different UADT cancer.

Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study of electronically recorded data of the Hospital Cancer Registry for the period of May 2014 to December 2014. The UADT cancers were evaluated for gender and age-group distribution, their relative proportion, and association with tobacco use and tobacco-associated risk in males to develop UADT cancers. The type of tobacco usage was clustered as chewable, smoking, and both. Relative risk (RR) of UADT with tobacco usage was identified for males.

Results: A total of 1965 (n) UADT cancer patients were identified, male:female was 2.9, tobacco habits was in 1608 (81.8%) patients, both forms of tobacco use in 705 (43.8%), chewable tobacco use in 588 (36.6%) and smoking in 315 (19.6%) patients, tobacco habits in males ranges from 67.3% to 94.3% and in females range from 5.7% to 32.7%, RR of UADT cancer in males for tongue cancer was 1.5 (confidence interval [CI] =1.2-1.9), oropharynx was 1.4 (CI = 1.0-1.8), hypopharynx 1.4 (CI = 1.1-1.7), esophageal cancer was 1.4 (CI = 1.3-1.7), and for laryngeal cancer RR was 1.7 (CI = 1.0-3.0).

Conclusion: Consumption of chewable tobacco is the major form of tobacco use alone or in combination in UADT cancer patients of our population.