Study On The Risk Factors Of Esophageal Cancer And The Trends Of Incidence In Linzhou

OBJECTIVESEsophageal cancer is one of the most common human cancers, which annually causes more than 300,000 cases and half of which are Chinese, it causes great harm to people's health. EC shows remarkable variation in its geographic distribution in the world. Linzhou (formerly Linxian), a rural county, is one of the world's highest incident areas for EC in China. Based on the data from Linzhou Cancer Registry, the annual average of incidence rate in men was 134.53 per 100,000 and which in women was 99.30 per 100,000 during 39 years from 1959 to 1997.Epidemiological and etiologic studies of EC in Linzhou revealed that cigarette smoking, excess alcohol consumption, lack of intake of fruits and vegetables, nutritional deficiencies, preference for hot food, fast eating and eating salted food such as salted vegetables containing a great deal of nitrite or mycotoxin,eating pickled vegetables,and family history of EC are significant risk factors for developing EC. However, researchs on the trends of these risk factors had not been found in existing literatures.