Project:

Case control study of lung cancer in women on Teesside

From January 1999
Project Leader(s): Dr Richard Edwards (Univ of Manchester)
Staff: Dr Tanja Pless-Mulloli, Ms Denise Howel, Dr Tom Chadwick
Contact: Dr Tanja Pless-Mulloli
Sponsors: Fight Against Cancer in Teesside (FACT) (£129,000, £50,000), County Durham and Tees Valley Health Authority (£10,000), South Tees Hospitals NS Trust (£5,000)
Partners: Dr Olaf Papke (Hamburg), Dr Harry Gribbin (South Cleveland Hospital), Dr Richard Harrison (North Tees General Hospital), Dr David Sinclair (South Cleveland Hospital), Dr Stephen Murphy (South Cleveland Hospital), Professor Philip Snashall (North Tees Gene

Background - Lung cancer is the commonest cause of death from cancer in the UK. There is evidence that lung cancer may be partly caused by exposure to air pollution. A recent study in Teesside found higher rates of lung cancer among women living in deprived areas closest to industry compared with women living in comparable areas in Teesside and Sunderland more distant from industry.

Aim - To investigate whether residence close to heavy industry was associated with lung cancer in women.

Methods - We recruited 204 women aged <80yrs with incident primary lung cancer and 309 age-matched community controls to a population-based case control study. We obtained life-course residential, occupational and active and passive smoking histories.

Results - The adjusted odds ratio (OR) for living 25+ years (vs. 0 years) near heavy industry in Teesside was 1.47 (95%CI 0.63 to 3.44) or 1.05 (0.91 to 1.22) for an additional 10 years lived nearby. ORs were similar after considering residence near industry in Teesside or elsewhere and by disregarding residential exposures within the last 20 years.

Conclusions - We did not conclusively support or refute the hypothesis of an association between residence near heavy industry and lung cancer, but a strong association is unlikely.

Conference Presentations

  • Dioxin body burden in women with long term residency near and away from major chemical industries in Teesside, UK, Tanja Pless-Mulloli , Richard Edwards , Denise Howel , Olaf Paepke , Thomas Hermann. DIOXIN 2004, 24th International Symposium on Halogenated Environmental, Organic Pollutants and POPs, Berlin September 2004.
  • Can dioxin body burden data be used to estimate long term residential exposure to industrial pollution? Tanja Pless-Mulloli, Richard Edwards, Olaf Paepke, Thomas Hermann, Denise Howel?, International Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) conference, New York, July 2004.
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Staff

Denise Howel
Senior Lecturer

Professor Tanja Pless-Mulloli
Prof of Environ Epidemiology