Cadmium Exposure and Pancreatic Cancer in South Louisiana

Abstract

Cadmium has been hypothesized to be a pancreatic carcinogen. We test the hypothesis that cadmium exposure is a risk factor for pancreatic cancer with a population-based case-control study sampled from a population with persistently high rates of pancreatic cancer (south Louisiana). We tested potential dietary and nondietary sources of cadmium for their association with urinary cadmium concentrations which reflect long-term exposure to cadmium due to the accumulation of cadmium in the kidney cortex. Increasing urinary cadmium concentrations were significantly associated with an increasing risk of pancreatic cancer (2nd quartile OR = 3.34, 3rd = 5.58, 4th = 7.70; test for trend P ≤ 0.0001). Potential sources of cadmium exposure, as documented in the scientific literature, found to be statistically significantly associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer included working as a plumber, pipefitter or welder (OR = 5.88) and high consumption levels of red meat (4th quartile OR = 6.18) and grains (4th quartile OR = 3.38). Current cigarette smoking, at least 80 pack years of smoking, occupational exposure to cadmium and paints, working in a shipyard, and high consumption of grains were found to be statistically significantly associated with increased concentrations of urinary cadmium. This study provides epidemiologic evidence that cadmium is a potential human pancreatic carcinogen.

Breast Cancer Frequency and Exposure to Cadmium: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review

“…Lethal or chronic Cd exposures and it's toxicity and damage to mammalian organs, mostly from dietary sources, seem to be the real challenge in the 21st century in a global health setting (Thevenod and Lee, 2013). Several lines of epidemiologic evidences from exposed people in polluted and contaminated areas have suggested a positive association between Cd and risk of several type cancers such as pancreas, prostate and endometrial (Akesson et al, 2008;Luckett et al, 2012;Sawada et al, 2012).…”

Diabetes, antidiabetic medications, and pancreatic cancer risk: an analysis from the International Pancreatic Cancer Case-Control Consortium

“…The present pooled analysis included 8305 cases of adenocarcinoma of the exocrine pancreas and 13 987 controls from 15 case-control studies within the PanC4 consortium, providing information on history of diabetes and medications for diabetes [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. The main characteristics of the studies are described in supplementary Table S1, available at Annals of Oncology online.…”

Dietary acrylamide and the risk of pancreatic cancer in the International Pancreatic Cancer Case–Control Consortium (PanC4)

“…This investigation is based on six case-control studies [10][11][12][13][14][15] with comprehensive food frequency questionnaires, including information on the major food items contributing acrylamide intake (e.g., potato products cooked at high temperatures, breads, coffee) as well as calculation of total energy intake. They included a total of 1975 cases and 4239 controls.…”

“…The main characteristics of the studies are described in Supplementary Table S1. A number of participants in three case-control studies included [11,12,14] lacked more than 10% of the required information to estimate acrylamide intake (i.e., they had not completed the food frequency questionnaires), and were therefore excluded from the analyses. Another PanC4 participating study from Shanghai, China [16], could not be included in the investigation since data on content of dietary acrylamide in Chinese foods was not available at the time of data analysis.…”