Associations of Head and Neck Cancer with Hepatitis B Virus and Hepatitis C Virus Infection

This case-control study investigates the associations between head and neck cancer (HNC), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. We included 5603 patients who had received a diagnosis of HNC as cases and 16,809 propensity score matching controls. We employed multivariate logistic regression models to evaluate the association of HNC with HBV and HCV infection after taking sociodemographic characteristics and diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, HPV infection, tobacco use disorder, and alcohol abuse/alcohol dependence syndrome into considerations. Results show that 7.9% of the total sample had been previously diagnosed with HBV infection, with 9.0% prevalence among cases and 7.6% among controls (p < 0.001). The chi-squared test suggests a significant difference in the prevalence of HCV infection between cases and controls (3.3% vs. 2.7%, p = 0.019). The covariate-adjusted odds ratio (OR) of HBV infection in patients with HNC relative to controls was 1.219 (95% CI = 1.093~1.359). Additionally, the adjusted OR of HCV infection in patients with HNC was 1.221 (95% CI = 1.023~1.457) compared to controls. Furthermore, patients with oropharyngeal cancer were more likely to have HCV infection than controls (adjusted OR = 2.142, 95% CI = 1.171~3.918). Our study provides evidence that suggests a potential association between HBV and HCV infections and the risk of HNC.