Breast cancer and serum organochlorine residues
Open Access
- 1 May 2003
- journal article
- research article
- Published by BMJ in Occupational and Environmental Medicine
- Vol. 60 (5), 348-351
- https://doi.org/10.1136/oem.60.5.348
Abstract
Background: Controversy still exists about the breast carcinogenic properties in humans of environmental xenoestrogens (organochlorines), justifying new investigations. Aims: To compare the blood levels of total dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) in samples collected at the time of breast cancer discovery, in order to avoid the potential consequences of body weight change (after chemotherapy or radiotherapy) on the pesticide residue levels. Methods: Blood levels of HCB and total DDT (we calculated total DDT concentrations by adding all DDT and DDE isomers) were compared in 159 women with breast cancer and 250 presumably healthy controls. Risk of breast cancer associated with organochlorine concentration was evaluated. Results: Mean levels of total DDT and HCB were significantly higher for breast cancer patients than for controls. No differences in serum levels of total DDT or HCB were found between oestrogen receptor positive and oestrogen receptor negative patients with breast cancer. Conclusions: These results add to the growing evidence that certain persistent pollutants may occur in higher concentrations in blood samples from breast cancer patients than controls.Keywords
This publication has 30 references indexed in Scilit:
- Organochlorine exposure and risk of breast cancerThe Lancet, 1998
- Organochlorine Compounds: Risk of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and Breast Cancer?Archives of environmental health, 1996
- Inhibition of gap junctional intercellular communication in normal human breast epithelial cells after treatment with pesticides, PCBs, and PBBs, alone or in mixtures.Environmental Health Perspectives, 1996
- Environmental and dietary estrogens and human health: is there a problem?Environmental Health Perspectives, 1995
- Breast Cancer and Serum Organochlorines: a Prospective Study Among White, Black, and Asian WomenJNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 1994
- High Organochlorine Body Burden in Women With Estrogen Receptor-Positive Breast CancerJNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 1994
- Medical hypothesis: xenoestrogens as preventable causes of breast cancer.Environmental Health Perspectives, 1993
- Blood Levels of Organochlorine Residues and Risk of Breast CancerJNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 1993
- DDT supports the growth of an estrogen-responsive tumorToxicology Letters, 1985
- Organochlorine compounds in human breast fat from deceased with and without breast cancer and in a biopsy material from newly diagnosed patients undergoing breast surgeryEnvironmental Research, 1984