A research team at the National Cancer Center has found that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) can increase lung cancer risk.
The team confirmed that POP stays inside the human body even after decades of the prohibition of production and use, and even exposure at low concentrations can seriously affect human health.
The team, led by Professor Park Eun-young, concluded so after analyzing POP concentration in serum samples of lung cancer patients through a patient-cohort study.
Professor Park measured the concentrations of 19 organochlorinated pesticides and 32 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in the serum of 118 lung cancer patients and 252 control subjects. As a result, the team confirmed a large association between many POPs and lung cancer.
“The association between the serum concentration of chlordane, an organochlorine pesticide, and PCBs used in insulators was particularly high,” it said. “Every 2.72-fold increase in the serum concentration of trans-nonachlor, the metabolite of chlordan, increased the risk of lung cancer by 2.2-fold.”
Also, for each 2.72-fold increase in PCBs' serum concentrations, lung cancer risk increased from 1.4-fold to 3.3-fold, the team added.
As part of the research, the team also confirmed that POPs are dangerous even in low doses. The median transnonachlor concentration in the serum sample of this study was 7.3 ng/g lipid.
The value of the U.S. general population is 17.3 ng/g lipid. Assuming that the general population of Korea is not much different from that of the U.S., the team found that the cohort of this study had a greater association between POPs and lung cancer, although exposure is much less than that of the general population.
“We confirmed that POPs remained in the living body even after not being in use for the past 20 to 30 years and that exposure to low concentrations seriously affects human health, such as the risk of lung cancer,” Professor Kim said. “POPs are not only an issue of the current generation but also a serious health and environment issue for future generations due to the persistence of the ecosystem.”
Therefore, there is an urgent need for public health policies to reduce exposure to POPs, she added.
POPs are environmental hormones that accumulate in the body and disturb the human endocrine system and damage the immune system. The pollutant characteristics include toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation to the human body and ecosystem, while well-known POPs substances include dioxin and PCBs.
The journal Environment International published the results of the study.