Alcohol drinking, smoking, and cutaneous melanoma risk: Mendelian randomization analysis

To investigate the causal relationship between poor lifestyle habits, such as smoking and drinking, and cutaneous malignant melanoma.

In the present study, alcohol consumption and smoking were used as exposure factors, and single nucleotide polymorphisms closely associated with alcohol consumption and smoking were used as instrumental variables, while cutaneous melanoma was set as an outcome variable. Two-sample Mendelian randomization analyses were run between alcohol consumption and melanoma and smoking and melanoma to investigate their causal associations, respectively.

We found a positive and statistically significant causal effect of alcohol intake on the risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma (OR: 2.23; 95%CI: 1.11-4.47; p=0.02). The present study showed no significant causal relationship between cigarettes per day and cutaneous melanoma (OR: 0.85; 95%CI: 0.54-1.35; p=0.50) or smoking initiation and cutaneous melanoma (OR: 1.02; 95%CI: 0.74-1.39; p=0.88).

This study provides Mendelian randomization evidence supporting alcohol consumption as a risk factor for cutaneous malignant melanoma. And the causal relationship between smoking and cutaneous malignant melanoma still needs to be further investigated.