Research Links Air Pollution to Lung Cancer
Prolonged exposure to fine particulate air pollution significantly increases the risk of dying from lung cancer and cardiopulmonary causes, according to a new study of 500,000 adults in over 100 American cities.
The new study extended the follow-up period for participants in the study of the American Cancer Society cohort from seven to 16 years, and looked at recent fine particle monitoring information for the years 1999-2000. Importantly, investigators reported that prevailing levels of fine particle pollution in the U.S. are associated with significant health risks.
Authors concluded that: “the findings of this study provide the strongest evidence to date that long term exposure to fine particulate air pollution common to many U.S. cities is an important risk factor for cardiopulmonary disease mortality. In addition, the large cohort and extended follow-up have provided an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate associations between air pollution and lung cancer mortality. Elevated fine particulate air pollution exposures were associated with significant increases in lung cancer mortality. Although potential effects of other unaccounted for factors cannot be excluded with certainty, the associations between fine particulate air pollution and lung cancer mortality as well as cardiopulmonary mortality are observed even after controlling for cigarette smoking, body mass, diet, occupational exposure, numerous other individual risk factors, and after using recent advances in statistical modeling to control for regional and other spatial differences.”
C. Arden Pope III, PhD; Richard T. Burnett, PhD; Michael J. Thun, MD; Eugenia E. Calle, PhD; Daniel Krewski, PhD; Kazuhiko Ito, PhD; George D. Thurston, ScD, Lung Cancer, Cardiopulmonary Mortality, and Long-term Exposure to Fine Particulate Air Pollution, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 287, No. 9, March 6, 2002.
The American Medical Association [www.jama.ama-assn.org] offers the abstract online.
