PLoS ONE (Jan 2012)

Is opium a real risk factor for esophageal cancer or just a methodological artifact? Hospital and neighborhood controls in case-control studies.

  • Ramin Shakeri,
  • Farin Kamangar,
  • Dariush Nasrollahzadeh,
  • Mehdi Nouraie,
  • Hooman Khademi,
  • Arash Etemadi,
  • Farhad Islami,
  • Hajiamin Marjani,
  • Saman Fahimi,
  • Alireza Sepehr,
  • Atieh Rahmati,
  • Christian C Abnet,
  • Sanford M Dawsey,
  • Paul Brennan,
  • Paolo Boffetta,
  • Reza Malekzadeh,
  • Reza Majdzadeh

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032711
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 3
p. e32711

Abstract

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BackgroundControl selection is a major challenge in epidemiologic case-control studies. The aim of our study was to evaluate using hospital versus neighborhood control groups in studying risk factors of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).Methodology/principal findingsWe compared the results of two different case-control studies of ESCC conducted in the same region by a single research group. Case definition and enrollment were the same in the two studies, but control selection differed. In the first study, we selected two age- and sex-matched controls from inpatient subjects in hospitals, while for the second we selected two age- and sex-matched controls from each subject's neighborhood of residence. We used the test of heterogeneity to compare the results of the two studies. We found no significant differences in exposure data for tobacco-related variables such as cigarette smoking, chewing Nass (a tobacco product) and hookah (water pipe) usage, but the frequency of opium usage was significantly different between hospital and neighborhood controls. Consequently, the inference drawn for the association between ESCC and tobacco use did not differ between the studies, but it did for opium use. In the study using neighborhood controls, opium use was associated with a significantly increased risk of ESCC (adjusted OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.17-2.68), while in the study using hospital controls, this was not the case (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.63-1.87). Comparing the prevalence of opium consumption in the two control groups and a cohort enrolled from the same geographic area suggested that the neighborhood controls were more representative of the study base population for this exposure.Conclusions/significanceHospital and neighborhood controls did not lead us to the same conclusion for a major hypothesized risk factor for ESCC in this population. Our results show that control group selection is critical in drawing appropriate conclusions in observational studies.