TitleExposure to ambient air pollution and the incidence of lung cancer and breast cancer in the Ontario Population Health and Environment Cohort (ONPHEC).
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2019
AuthorsBai, L, Shin, S, Burnett, RT, Kwong, JC, Hystad, P, van Donkelaar, A, Goldberg, MS, Lavigne, E, Weichenthal, S, Martin, RV, Copes, R, Kopp, A, Chen, H
JournalInt J Cancer
Date Published07/2019
ISSN1097-0215
Abstract

Lung and female breast cancers are highly prevalent worldwide. Although the association between exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM ) and lung cancer has been recognized, there is less evidence for associations with other common air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO ) and ozone (O ). Even less is known about potential associations between these pollutants and breast cancer. We conducted a population-based cohort study to investigate the associations of chronic exposure to PM , NO , O , and redox-weighted average of NO and O (O ) with incident lung and breast cancer, using the Ontario Population Health and Environment Cohort (ONPHEC), which includes all long-term residents aged 35-85 years who lived in Ontario, Canada, 2001-2015. Incident lung and breast cancers were ascertained using the Ontario Cancer Registry. Annual estimates of exposures were assigned to the residential postal codes of subjects for each year during follow-up. We used Cox proportional-hazards models adjusting for personal- and neighborhood-level covariates. Our cohorts for lung and breast cancer analyses included ~4.9 million individuals and ~2.5 million women, respectively. During follow-up, 100,146 incident cases of lung cancer and 91,146 incident cases of breast cancer were diagnosed. The fully adjusted analyses showed positive associations of lung cancer incidence with PM (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.02 [95%CI:1.01-1.05] per 5.3 μg/m ) and NO (HR = 1.05 [95%CI: 1.03-1.07] per 14 ppb). No associations with lung cancer were observed for O or O . Relationships between PM and NO with lung cancer exhibited a sublinear shape. We did not find compelling evidence linking air pollution to breast cancer. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

DOI10.1002/ijc.32575
Alternate JournalInt. J. Cancer
PubMed ID31304979