Long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in 15 European cohorts within the ESCAPE project

article
BACKGROUND: Epidemiological evidence on the association between ambient air pollution and breast cancer risk is inconsistent. OBJECTIVE: We examined the association between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in European women. METHODS: In 15 cohorts from nine European countries, individual estimates of air pollution levels at the residence were estimated by standardized land-use regression models developed within the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE) and Transport related Air Pollution and Health impacts - Integrated Methodologies for Assessing Particulate Matter (TRANSPHORM) projects: particulate matter (PM) ≤2:5 μm, ≤10 μm, and 2:5–10 μm in diameter (PM2:5, PM10, and PMcoarse, respectively); PM2:5 absorbance; nitrogen oxides (NO2 and NOx); traffic intensity; and elemental composition of PM. We estimated cohort-specific associations between breast cancer and air pollutants using Cox regression models, adjusting for major lifestyle risk factors, and pooled cohort-specific estimates using random-effects meta-analyses. RESULTS: Of 74,750 postmenopausal women included in the study, 3,612 developed breast cancer during 991,353 person-years of follow-up. We found positive and statistically insignificant associations between breast cancer and PM2:5 {hazard ratio (HR) =1:08 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.77, 1.51] per 5 μg/m3 }, PM10 [1.07 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.30) per 10 μg/m3 ], PMcoarse [1.20 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.49 per 5 μg/m3 ], and NO2 [1.02 (95% CI: 0.98, 1.07 per 10 μg/m3 ], and a statistically significant association with NOx [1.04 (95% CI: 1.00, 1.08) per 20 μg/m3, p =0:04]. CONCLUSIONS: We found suggestive evidence of an association between ambient air pollution and incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in European women. © 2017, Public Health Services, US Dept of Health and Human Services. All rights reserved.
Chemicals/CAS: copper, 15158-11-9, 7440-50-8; iron, 14093-02-8, 53858-86-9, 7439-89-6; nickel, 7440-02-0; nitrogen oxide, 11104-93-1; potassium, 7440-09-7; silicon, 7440-21-3; sulfur, 13981-57-2, 7704-34-9; vanadium, 7440-62-2; zinc, 7440-66-6, 14378-32-6
TNO Identifier
782442
ISSN
00916765
Source
Environmental Health Perspectives, 125(10), pp. 1-14.
Article nr.
107005
Pages
1-14