ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the relationship between drinking water from farmland edge and digestive tract cancers in rural areas.Methods A total of 180 cases of digestive tract cancers from Longquan city,Jinyun county and Qingtian county were selected and 360 controls with the same age group and sex were enrolled.1∶2 matched design of case-control study was used.The data was analyzed by Wilcoxon matched -pairs signed -ranks test.Results Overall,individuals who drank water from farmland edge were more likely to have digestive tract cancer among 3 areas (OR=4.005 ,95%CI:2.228-7.199).In Qingtian county the risk of digestive tract cancers in individuals who drank water from farmland edge was 5.375 times of control group population (95%CI:2.287 -12.635 ),But there was not statistically significant in Longquan city and Jinyun county (P >0.05 ).For gastric cancer,the proportion of drinking farmland edge water was significantly higher in cases than that in control group (OR=4.875,95%CI:2.007-11.839),while the difference was not statistically significant for liver cancer,colorectal cancer and esophageal cancer (P>0.05 ).In Qingtian county ,for gastric cancer,the proportion of drinking water from farmland edge was 5.750 times of control group population (95%CI:1.683-19.649).But there was not statistically significant in other cancers(P>0.05).Conclusion Drinking water near farmland edge may be one of the risk factors of gastric cancer in rural areas.