A survey on the effect of Opium addiction on reducing the age of laryngeal cancer in Kerman province

Laryngeal cancer is a disease of old age and the most common age of presentation is 6th, 7th decade of life. This disease is more common in men, but male to female ratio has been decreased from 15:1 to 4:1 during the last 40 years. The more common risk factors are cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. This cross-sectional study carried out to determine the age of laryngeal cancer from 1375 to 1380. 98 patients with confirmed diagnosis of laryngeal cancer (83 men and 15 women) with the mean age of 57.5±12.9 were studied. Patients were divided into 2 groups: Addict and non-addict. Mean age of the addicted, patients was 10.5 years less than that of non-addicted. The average age of addicted patients was 55.1±12.1 and that of non-addicted patients was 65.6±12.8 (P=0.0001). The rate of laryngeal cancer under the age of 40 has been reported, less than 2% in international reports, but in the present study it was 6.5% and all of them were opium addicted. The number of cigarette smoked daily and length of smoking were significantly lower in addicted patients (21.5±7 cigarette daily and 25.2±11.1 years) comparing with non-addicted patients (21.5±9.5 cigarette daily and 37.4±11.9 years). Therefore the mean age of incidence in our patients is lower than that reperted in literature and it maybe due to opium consumption.