Coffee drink Credit: Petr Kratochvil

Does beverage consumption impact lymphoma survival?

Jen Smith Section: Lymphomas

Published: 04/19/13

A study of lymphoma patients in Southeast Asia suggests that drinking certain beverages could have an impact on survival.

The results indicated that alcohol consumption was associated with decreased survival.

But drinking coffee or black tea was associated with superior survival, at least among female lymphoma patients.

Yin Leng Lee, of the National Cancer Center in Singapore, and her colleagues presented these findings in a poster at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 (abstract 2539*).

Lee noted that epidemiological studies have suggested alcohol use results in poorer survival across various cancer types in

Western populations. But reviews of tea and coffee consumption in the context of cancer survival are limited.

So she and her colleagues decided to examine the impact of beverage consumption on lymphoma survival in Southeast Asia. They enrolled 384 lymphoma patients between January 2004 and December 2009 and followed these patients until July 2012.

The researchers evaluated lifestyle characteristics at diagnosis using a structured questionnaire. They used Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate the prognostic value of beverage consumption on lymphoma survival.

They adjusted their analyses for demographic factors such as age and gender, as well as clinical prognostic factors such as LDH level, ECOG status, Ann Arbor stage, and extranodal sites.

Of the patients enrolled, 377 were initially evaluable. Most of these patients (n=321) had non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), but 56 had Hodgkin lymphoma. Because the number of Hodgkin lymphoma patients was so small, the researchers were unable to include these patients in their final analysis.

The median age of the NHL patients was 58 years (range, 19 to 90), and 144 patients were male. Most were Chinese (n=266), 38 were Malay, 15 were Indian, and 2 were classified as “other.”

Page 1 of 2Hematology Times

4/21/2013http://www.hematologytimes.com/p_article_print.do?id=3178&section=

Nearly all of the patients (n=316) had more than 4 extranodal sites, and 131 had LDH levels greater than 380 U/L. Most patients (n=300) had an ECOG status of 0-2, but 13 had a status of 3 or 4. As for Ann Arbor stage, 174 patients had stage 1 or 2, and 147 patients had stage 3 or 4.

Patients were considered “drinkers” of a beverage if they had 1 or more of the drink in question each day. According to this criterion, 184 patients were coffee drinkers, 105 were tea drinkers, and 45 were alcohol drinkers.

The researchers found that alcohol consumption was associated with a 2-fold decrease in survival (Ptrend=0.004).

And female drinkers of black tea or coffee had a 50% lower risk of death compared to non-drinkers (Plog-rank=0.0063 for tea and 0.018 for coffee). However, there were no differences

in survival between male coffee/tea drinkers and non-drinkers.

“There might be something going on between females and males in terms of genetics,” Lee said. “We have to look into doing molecular work or maybe cell line work to confirm what we are seeing here.”

*Information in the abstract differs from that presented at the meeting.

© 2007-2013 Hematology Times, LLC. All rights reserved.

Page 2 of 2Hematology Times

4/21/2013http://www.hematologytimes.com/p_article_print.do?id=3178&section=