Esophageal cancer mortality: relationship with alcohol intake and cigarette smoking in Italy.

This paper examines changes with time in age-adjusted mortality from esophageal cancer for the years 1950-1981, in relation to changes in smoking habits and alcohol consumption. In both sexes the age-adjusted death rates have shown no marked time variation. Instead in the same period there have been marked temporal variations in consumption of alcohol and tobacco which are considered risk factors associated with esophageal cancer. The male cohort variation seems to indicate some fluctuations in mortality before 1921 and a progressive increase after this year. In females the death rates are very low and the cohort variation is practically constant. The progressive increase of cohort variation in esophageal cancer mortality for men born after 1921 coincides with a progressive increase in hard alcohol consumption. In the same period there has also been a progressive increase in tobacco consumption but this begun at the turn of this century.