Air Pollution is Associated with Cancer Mortality Beyond Lung Cancer

Typography

Air pollution is classified as carcinogenic to humans given its association with lung cancer, but there is little evidence for its association with cancer at other body sites. In a new large-scale prospective study led by the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, researchers observed an association between some air pollutants and mortality from kidney, bladder and colorectal cancer. 

Air pollution is classified as carcinogenic to humans given its association with lung cancer, but there is little evidence for its association with cancer at other body sites. In a new large-scale prospective study led by the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, researchers observed an association between some air pollutants and mortality from kidney, bladder and colorectal cancer. 

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, included more than 600,000 adults in the US who participated in the Cancer Prevention Study II and who were followed for 22 years (from 1982 to 2004). The scientific team examined associations of mortality from cancer at 29 sites with long-term residential exposure to three ambient pollutants: PM2,5, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3).

Read more at Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal)

Photo credit: Kentaro IEMOTO from Tokyo, Japan via Wikimedia Commons