Background: Coffee consumption has been suggested to reduce hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk in epidemiological studies. Yet, data from prospective studies in US populations are nonexistent. Here we evaluated the association between coffee intake and HCC incidence in multiethnic US populations.

Methods: We conducted a prospective analysis of 179,890 African-American, Native Hawaiian, Japanese-American, Latino and white men and women who were recruited into the Multiethnic Cohort Study between 1993 and 1996. Participants reported their coffee consumption and other dietary and lifestyle factors at baseline and were followed up to 18 years for HCC incidence. Serologic testing for hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) infection was performed on a subset of cohort participants (152 HCC cases and 460 non-cases). Hazard rate ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using Cox regression adjusting for sex, ethnicity, education, alcohol intake, smoking status, body mass index (BMI), and history of diabetes mellitus.

Results: During a median follow-up period of 16.6 years, 498 participants had developed HCC. High levels of regular coffee consumption were associated with reduced risk of HCC (P for trend <0.0001). Compared to non-drinkers/low consumers (up to six cups per week) of coffee, individuals who consumed one to three cups of coffee per day had a 29% reduction in risk of HCC (RR=0.71; 95% CI: 0.60, 0.86) and those who had four or more cups of coffee per day had a 42% reduction in risk of HCC (RR=0.58; 95% CI: 0.36, 0.92). The inverse relationships between coffee and HCC were similar regardless of the participants’ ethnicity, sex, BMI, smoking status, alcohol intake, or diabetes status. Within a subset of cohort participants with available HBV and HCV serologic data, coffee consumption was not associated with infection status (P=0.63).

Conclusions: These results suggest that an increased coffee consumption may reduce the risk of developing HCC in multiethnic US populations.

Citation Format: Veronica Wendy Setiawan, Lynne R. Wilkens, Brenda Y. Hernandez, Loic Le Marchand, Brian E. Henderson. Coffee intake reduces hepatocellular carcinoma risk: The Multiethnic Cohort. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-281. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-LB-281