BackgroundThere is some evidence that alcohol consumption is inversely associated with renal cell cancer (RCC), but the issue is still unclear.Patients and methodsWe investigated the relation using data from two Italian multicentric case–control studies conducted from 1985 to 2004, including a total of 1115 incident, histologically confirmed cases and 2582 controls hospitalised with acute, non-neoplastic conditions.ResultsCompared with non-drinkers, the multivariate odds ratios (ORs) of RCC were 0.87 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.73–1.04] for ≤4 drinks per day, 0.76 (95% CI 0.59–0.99) for >4 to ≤8 drinks per day and 0.70 (95% CI 0.50–0.97) for >8 drinks per day of alcoholic beverages, with a significant inverse trend in risk (P value = 0.01). The ORs were 0.85 (95% CI 0.71–1.02) for wine, 0.84 (95% CI 0.68–1.03) for beer and 0.86 (95% CI 0.70–1.05) for spirits consumption, as compared with abstainers. No …