MONDAY, Aug. 12, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Cannabis-related disorder is associated with an increased rate of head and neck cancer (HNC), according to a study published online Aug. 8 in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

Tyler J. Gallagher, from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and colleagues examined the clinical association between cannabis use and HNC in a large multicenter cohort study using clinical records from a database with 20 years of data from 64 health care organizations. Data were extracted for U.S adults with and without cannabis-related disorder and without a history of HNC. Relative risks were calculated to assess the risk for HNC after propensity score matching was performed for demographic characteristics, alcohol-related disorders, and tobacco use.

The cannabis-related disorder cohort included 116,076 individuals, and the non-cannabis-related disorder cohort included 3,985,286 individuals. The researchers found the cannabis-related disorder cohort had a higher rate of new HNC diagnosis in all sites. After matching (115,865 patients per group), patients with versus without cannabis-related disorder had a higher risk for any HNC (relative risk, 3.49). In a site-specific analysis, a higher risk for oral, oropharyngeal, and laryngeal cancer was seen for those with cannabis-related disorder (relative risks, 2.51, 4.90, and 8.39, respectively). When stratifying by older and younger age groups, results were consistent.

“The possibility of an association between cannabis use and HNC has substantial public health implications given that cannabis use is rising among young adults with trends toward legalization,” the authors write.

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