CANCER of the mouth and throat, normally found in elderly male smokers, is emerging at alarming levels in young non-smoking Irish women.

A study of patients treated at St James’s hospital in Dublin has found that an increasing number of women under 30, who don’t smoke or drink, are getting the cancer.

Researchers do not know what is behind the emergence of the illness in young female non-smokers, but diet may be a factor. They want to investigate whether foodstuffs that have come on the market in the past few decades, including carbonated drinks and chewing gum, could be a cause.

Oral and throat cancer is aggressive, and is the sixth most common tumour worldwide. Among those who have died from it are George Harrison, the former Beatle, and John Diamond, a British journalist, who had to have most of his tongue removed after suffering from a tumour.

Despite advances in treatment the prognosis remains poor, with little improvement in five-year survival during the past four decades. The death rate associated with it is high as the cancer is often discovered late in its development.

The incidence of the disease worldwide has increased since the 1960s. Smoking is the main risk factor, while alcohol consumption also has an influence.

The researchers examined medical records of 30 patients under 40 diagnosed with mouth or throat cancer at St James’s hospital in Dublin between 1993 and 2003. They compared them with 100 patients over 40 with the disease.

While most of those aged over 40 were smokers, the majority under 40, and all those under 30, had never smoked, revealed the study published in the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

“The main causative factor for the development of oral and throat cancer is tobacco smoking, but there is a small percentage of the population that get oral cancer that don’t smoke, don’t drink alcohol and tend to be female,” said Dr Esther O’Regan, a trainee oral pathologist at the Dublin Dental School and Hospital.

Oral cancer manifests itself as either a long-standing ulcer or white patch on the tongue, the floor of the mouth or the throat. “Most white patches aren’t cancer, but that is how it manifests itself,” said O’Regan.

The next step is to see if there is anything in the genes of young Irish adults that could be causing the disease.

O’Regan also wants to investigate whether young people have poorer diets now than in the past. International studies show that daily fruit and vegetable consumption has been found to be lower in those with oral cancer.

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