Association between hepatobiliary cancer and typhoid carrier state

A case-control study of deceased typhoid carriers registered by the New York City Health Department between 1922 and 1975 was carried out to test for an association between the typhoid-carrier state and death due to hepatobiliary cancer. 471 carriers were matched with 942 controls for sex, age at death, year of death, borough in which the carrier died, and where they were born. The results show that chronic typhoid carriers die of hepatobiliary cancer six times more often than the matched controls and that this difference is significant (P less than 0.001) by simple chi2 test and by the Mantel-Haenszel method of chi2 for matched triples. Possible mechanisms for this association are discussed.