NEW YORK - People who have chronic acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) are at an increased risk of developing cancer of the larynx or the voice box, according to a new study appearing in the American Journal of Medicine.
GERD has been linked to laryngeal cancer in the past because it is quite common occurrence in the cancer. The authors of the current study say that previous studies were not systematic enough to prove that GERD increases cancer risk.
The researchers assessed 96 men and women with laryngeal cancer and compared them to a control group without the presence of cancer. They found that people with GERD had double the risk of developing laryngeal cancer. The risk of developing cancer was not linked to smoking although smokers had a six times greater risk of developing the cancer.
Lead author Dr. Michael Vaezi, a gastroenterologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville said that although GERD was a risk for laryngeal cancer, there were no definitive studies on the subject.
Vaezi told Reuters Health that in an earlier study he and his colleagues had found that laryngeal cancer patients on acid-suppressing medication had a lower risk of recurrence. He felt this was an indication that GERD played a role in the relapse of the cancer as well.
