Alcohol, beer and lung cancer--a meaningful relationship?

The epidemiological evidence relating alcohol consumption and lung cancer is reviewed. Four correlation studies have shown a relationship between alcohol, particularly beer, consumption and lung cancer. Beer consumption was a risk factor in one case-control study. Eight out of ten prospective studies show alcoholics and high alcohol consumers to be at greater risk of lung cancer. Not all of the increased risk in these studies is explainable in terms of confounding by tobacco consumption. There is some animal evidence which supports the effects of alcohol on the likelihood of developing lung cancer.