Long-term exposure to fine particle elemental components and lung cancer incidence in the ELAPSE pooled cohort

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2020.110568

Environmental Research

Volume 193, February 2021, 110568

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.110568 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Exposure to PM_2.5 is associated with a higher risk of lung cancer.
•
PM_2.5 is a complex mixture of components from various sources.
•
We observed positive associations between all components and lung cancer.
•
Combustion particles and secondary inorganic aerosols may be of special importance.

Abstract

Background

An association between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and lung cancer has been established in previous studies. PM_2.5 is a complex mixture of chemical components from various sources and little is known about whether certain components contribute specifically to the associated lung cancer risk. The present study builds on recent findings from the “Effects of Low-level Air Pollution: A Study in Europe” (ELAPSE) collaboration and addresses the potential association between specific elemental components of PM_2.5 and lung cancer incidence.

Methods

We pooled seven cohorts from across Europe and assigned exposure estimates for eight components of PM_2.5 representing non-tail pipe emissions (copper (Cu), iron (Fe), and zinc (Zn)), long-range transport (sulfur (S)), oil burning/industry emissions (nickel (Ni), vanadium (V)), crustal material (silicon (Si)), and biomass burning (potassium (K)) to cohort participants’ baseline residential address based on 100 m by 100 m grids from newly developed hybrid models combining air pollution monitoring, land use data, satellite observations, and dispersion model estimates. We applied stratified Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for potential confounders (age, sex, calendar year, marital status, smoking, body mass index, employment status, and neighborhood-level socio-economic status).

Results

The pooled study population comprised 306,550 individuals with 3916 incident lung cancer events during 5,541,672 person-years of follow-up. We observed a positive association between exposure to all eight components and lung cancer incidence, with adjusted HRs of 1.10 (95% CI 1.05, 1.16) per 50 ng/m³ PM_2.5 K, 1.09 (95% CI 1.02, 1.15) per 1 ng/m³ PM_2.5 Ni, 1.22 (95% CI 1.11, 1.35) per 200 ng/m³ PM_2.5 S, and 1.07 (95% CI 1.02, 1.12) per 200 ng/m³ PM_2.5 V. Effect estimates were largely unaffected by adjustment for nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). After adjustment for PM_2.5 mass, effect estimates of K, Ni, S, and V were slightly attenuated, whereas effect estimates of Cu, Si, Fe, and Zn became null or negative.

Conclusions

Our results point towards an increased risk of lung cancer in connection with sources of combustion particles from oil and biomass burning and secondary inorganic aerosols rather than non-exhaust traffic emissions. Specific limit values or guidelines targeting these specific PM_2.5 components may prove helpful in future lung cancer prevention strategies.

Section snippets

Background

Previous studies have reported a positive relationship between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and lung cancer incidence (Raaschou-Nielsen et al., 2013; Hamra et al., 2014). Recently, we published a study within the Effects of Low-level Air Pollution: A Study in Europe (ELAPSE) collaboration based on a large pooled cohort of more than 300,000 participants across Europe and close to 4000 incident cases of lung cancer. The findings of this study indicated a positive

Methods

The methods including study population, outcome definition, and statistical analyses followed our earlier ELAPSE study (Hvidtfeldt et al., 2021).

Results

The pooled study population comprised 306,104 individuals and 3916 incident lung cancer events during 5,541,672 person-years of follow-up (Table 1). The recruitment period of participants ranged over the period 1985–2005 and the mean age at baseline ranged from 41.7 to 72.5 years across the individual (sub) cohorts with a pooled mean of 48.3 years. Four sub cohorts included women only and the pooled cohort comprised 34% men. Current smokers at baseline ranged from 13 to 37% across the

Discussion

The results of this study point towards an elevated risk of lung cancer following exposure to several PM_2.5 components. The positive relationships between all components and lung cancer remained in analyses taking into account NO₂, which is consistent with the weak associations observed between NO₂ and lung cancer (Hvidtfeldt et al., 2021). Adjustment for PM_2.5 mass attenuated the point estimates for some components, but a positive relationship remained for PM_2.5 K, Ni, V, and S. The positive

Funding

Research described in this article was conducted under contract to the Health Effects Institute (HEI), an organization jointly funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Assistance Award No. R-82811201) and certain motor vehicle and engine manufacturers. The contents of this article do not necessarily reflect the views of HEI, or its sponsors, nor do they necessarily reflect the views and policies of the EPA or motor vehicle and engine manufacturers.

The Swedish Twin

Credit author contribution statement

Ulla Arthur Hvidtfeldt: Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft; Jie Chen: Data curation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Writing - review & editing; Zorana Jovanovic Andersen: Writing - review & editing; Richard Atkinson: Writing - review & editing; Mariska Bauwelinck: Data curation, Writing - review & editing; Tom Bellander: Writing - review & editing; Jørgen Brandt: Data curation, Methodology, Writing - review & editing; Bert Brunekreef:

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We thank Marjan Tewis for the data management tasks in creating the pooled cohort dataset.

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Long-term exposure to fine particle elemental components and lung cancer incidence in the ELAPSE pooled cohort

Highlights

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Section snippets

Background

Methods

Results

Discussion

Funding

Credit author contribution statement

Declaration of competing interest

Acknowledgments

Atmos. Environ.

Environ. Int.

Environ. Int.

Environ. Int.

Lancet Oncol.

Environ. Int.

Am. Heart J.

Diabetes Metab.

Cohort profile: the EPIC-NL study

Int. J. Epidemiol.

Nitrogen dioxide levels estimated from land use regression models several years apart and association with mortality in a large cohort study

Environ Heal

Development of europe-wide models for particle elemental composition using supervised linear regression and random forest

Environ. Sci. Technol.

E3N study group for the ES. Cohort profile: the French E3N cohort study

Int. J. Epidemiol.

Inhalative exposure to vanadium pentoxide causes DNA damage in workers: results of a multiple end point study

Environ. Health Perspect.

Psychological distress and risk of pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes in a prospective study of Swedish middle-aged men and women

Diabet. Med.

Nickel: human health and environmental toxicology

Int. J. Environ. Res. Publ. Health

Land use regression modeling to estimate historic (1962-1991) concentrations of black smoke and sulfur dioxide for Great Britain

Environ. Sci. Technol.

Outdoor particulate matter exposure and lung cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Environ. Health Perspect.