Perfluorooctanoic acid exposure and cancer outcomes in a contaminated community: a geographic analysis.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
Background
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been linked to cancer in occupational mortality studies and animal toxicologic research.Objective
We investigated the relationship between PFOA exposure and cancer among residents living near the DuPont Teflon-manufacturing plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia (WV).Methods
Our analyses included incident cases of 18 cancers diagnosed from 1996 through 2005 in five Ohio (OH) counties and eight WV counties. For analyses of each cancer outcome, controls comprised all other cancers in the study data set except kidney, pancreatic, testicular, and liver cancers, which have been associated with PFOA in animal or human studies. We applied logistic regression models to individual-level data to calculate adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and confidence intervals (CIs). For the combined analysis of OH and WV data, the exposure of interest was resident water district. Within OH, geocoded addresses were integrated with a PFOA exposure model to examine the relationship between cancer odds and categories of estimated PFOA serum.Results
Our final data set included 7,869 OH cases and 17,238 WV cases. There was a positive association between kidney cancer and the very high and high serum exposure categories [AOR = 2.0 (95% CI: 1.0, 3.9) n = 9 and 2.0 (95% CI: 1.3, 3.2) n = 22, respectively] and a null association with the other exposure categories compared with the unexposed. The largest AOR was for testicular cancer with the very high exposure category [2.8 (95% CI: 0.8, 9.2) n = 6], but there was an inverse association with the lower exposure groups, and all estimates were imprecise because of small case numbers.Conclusions
Our results suggest that higher PFOA serum levels may be associated with testicular, kidney, prostate, and ovarian cancers and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Strengths of this study include near-complete case ascertainment for state residents and well-characterized contrasts in predicted PFOA serum levels from six contaminated water supplies.Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Vieira, VM; Hoffman, K; Shin, H-M; Weinberg, JM; Webster, TF; Fletcher, T
Published Date
- March 2013
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 121 / 3
Start / End Page
- 318 - 323
PubMed ID
- 23308854
Pubmed Central ID
- PMC3621179
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1552-9924
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0091-6765
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1289/ehp.1205829
Language
- eng