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Methyl bromide exposure and cancer risk in the Agricultural Health Study
- Source :
- Cancer Causes & Control. 23:807-818
- Publication Year :
- 2012
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2012.
-
Abstract
- Methyl bromide is a genotoxic soil fumigant with high acute toxicity, but unknown human carcinogenicity. Although many countries have reduced methyl bromide use because of its ozone depleting properties, some uses remain in the United States and other countries, warranting further investigation of human health effects.We used Poisson regression to calculate rate ratios (RR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) for associations between methyl bromide use and all cancers combined, as well as 12 specific sites, among 53,588 Agricultural Health Study pesticide applicators with follow-up from 1993 to 2007. We also evaluated interactions with a family history for four common cancers (prostate, lung, colon, and lymphohematopoietic). We categorized methyl bromide exposure based on lifetime days applied weighted by an intensity score.A total of 7,814 applicators (14.6 %) used methyl bromide, predominantly before enrollment. Based on 15 exposed cases, stomach cancer risk increased monotonically with increasing methyl bromide use (RR = 1.42; 95 % CI, 0.51-3.95 and RR = 3.13; 95 % CI, 1.25-7.80 for low and high use compared with no use; p (trend) = 0.02). No other sites displayed a significant monotonic pattern. Although we previously observed an association with prostate cancer (follow-up through 1999), the association did not persist with longer follow-up. We observed a nonsignificant elevated risk of prostate cancer with methyl bromide use among those with a family history of prostate cancer, but the interaction with a family history did not achieve statistical significance.Our results provide little evidence of methyl bromide associations with cancer risk for most sites examined; however, we observed a significant exposure-dependent increase in stomach cancer risk. Small numbers of exposed cases and declining methyl bromide use might have influenced our findings. Further study is needed in more recently exposed populations to expand on these results.
- Subjects :
- Male
Cancer Research
METHYL BROMIDE EXPOSURE
Article
Cohort Studies
Toxicology
Human health
chemistry.chemical_compound
Risk Factors
Stomach Neoplasms
Bromide
Occupational Exposure
Surveys and Questionnaires
Confidence Intervals
North Carolina
Humans
Medicine
Poisson Distribution
Carcinogen
Herbicides
business.industry
Agriculture
Middle Aged
Pesticide
Iowa
Acute toxicity
Agricultural Workers' Diseases
Hydrocarbons, Brominated
Oncology
chemistry
Female
Cancer risk
business
Follow-Up Studies
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15737225 and 09575243
- Volume :
- 23
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Cancer Causes & Control
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....ff5314a7a5e25e448ca21c4b1187c969