Arsenic exposure and lung cancer
Journal
Health Hazards of Arsenic Poisoning Environmental: From Epidemic to Pandemic
Pages
65-94
Date Issued
2011
Author(s)
Abstract
Arsenic is a widely distributed semimetallic element that occurs naturally in various compounds in the crust of the earth. The primary source of arsenic exposure for human beings is drinking water contaminated with inorganic arsenic. Inhalation is the second route of arsenic exposure that has been linked to increased cancer risk, especially of lung cancer. The earliest link between arsenic exposure and lung cancer was suggested as early as 1879, based on the observation that German miners who inhaled arsenic during work suffered high rates of lung cancer. The carcinogenicity of arsenic compounds was noted a few years later, in Hutchinson's observation of unusual skin tumors in patients treated with arsenicals. More than 100 years later, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, 1980) documented that inorganic arsenic compounds are skin and lung (via inhalation) carcinogens in humans. In this review, we focus on epidemiological studies of arsenic exposure via drinking water and inhalation and a possible biological mechanism that may explain the role of arsenic in the development of lung cancer. Overall, recent epidemiological studies, using cohort or case control study designs that were based on individual data from various countries, have provided further evidence that ingestion of arsenic via drinking water increases the risk of lung cancer in a dose–response way. Confounding due to cigarette smoking was minimized in these studies with individual information, and the synergistic effect of cigarette smoking and arsenic exposure on lung cancer was suggested. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the USA adopted a new standard for arsenic in drinking water – 50 to 10 ?g/L – in 2001 and required public water systems to comply with the new standard beginning 23 January 2006. This new American limit is mainly based on extrapolation from data based on southwestern Taiwan, which has very high concentrations of arsenic in artesian well water (mean: 780 ?g/L), and the assumption that the dose–response curve is linear. More information on the hazardous health effect of arsenic exposure via drinking water at lower level from both biological and epidemiological studies is warranted for setting the future limits on arsenic in drinking water. ? 2011 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.
SDGs
Publisher
World Scientific Publishing Co.
Type
book part