- Chang, Chun-Pin;
- La Vecchia, Carlo;
- Serraino, Diego;
- Olshan, Andrew F;
- Zevallos, Jose P;
- Morgenstern, Hal;
- Levi, Fabio;
- Garavello, Werner;
- Kelsey, Karl;
- McClean, Michael;
- Chen, Chu;
- Schwartz, Stephen M;
- Schantz, Stimson;
- Yu, Guo-Pei;
- Boffetta, Paolo;
- Hashibe, Mia;
- Lee, Yuan-Chin Amy;
- Parpinel, Maria;
- Augustin, Livia SA;
- Turati, Federica;
- Zhang, Zuo-Feng;
- Edefonti, Valeria
High dietary glycaemic index (GI) and glycaemic load (GL) may increase cancer risk. However, limited information was available on GI and/or GL and head and neck cancer (HNC) risk. We conducted a pooled analysis on 8 case-control studies (4081 HNC cases; 7407 controls) from the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) consortium. We estimated the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of HNC, and its subsites, from fixed- or mixed-effects logistic models including centre-specific quartiles of GI or GL. GI, but not GL, had a weak positive association with HNC (ORQ4 vs. Q1 = 1.16; 95% CI = 1.02-1.31). In subsites, we found a positive association between GI and laryngeal cancer (ORQ4 vs. Q1 = 1.60; 95% CI = 1.30-1.96) and an inverse association between GL and oropharyngeal cancer (ORQ4 vs. Q1 = 0.78; 95% CI = 0.63-0.97). This pooled analysis indicates a modest positive association between GI and HNC, mainly driven by laryngeal cancer.