Carbaryl exposure and incident cancer in the Agricultural Health Study

✍ Scribed by Rajeev Mahajan; Aaron Blair; Joseph Coble; Charles F. Lynch; Jane A. Hoppin; Dale P. Sandler; Michael C.R. Alavanja

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 94 KB
• Volume: 121
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.22836

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Carbaryl is a carbamate insecticide with a broad spectrum of uses in agricultural, commercial and household settings. It has previously been linked with non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) but studies of cancer risk in humans are limited. We examined occupational carbaryl use and risk of all cancers in the Agricultural Health Study, a prospective study of a cohort of pesticide applicators in North Carolina and Iowa. This analysis included 21,416 subjects (1,291 cases) enrolled from 1993–1997 and followed for cancer incidence through 2003. Pesticide exposure and other data were collected using self‐administered questionnaires. Poisson regression was used to calculate rate ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) while controlling for potential confounders. Carbaryl was not associated with cancer risk overall. Relative to subjects who never used carbaryl, melanoma risk was elevated with >175 lifetime exposure‐days (RR = 4.11; 95%CI, 1.33–12.75; p‐trend = 0.07), >10 years of use (RR = 3.19; 95%CI, 1.28–7.92; p‐trend = 0.04), or ≥10 days of use per year (RR = 5.50; 95%CI, 2.19–13.84; p‐trend < 0.001). Risk remained after adjusting for sunlight exposure. Although not significant, there appeared to be a trend of decreasing prostate cancer risk with increasing level of exposure. A small increase in NHL risk was observed using some, but not all, exposure measures. No associations were observed with other examined cancer sites. Because the observed results were not hypothesized a priori and because of limited study of their biological plausibility, they should be interpreted with caution. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.