Occupational pesticide exposure is linked to the prevalence of Luminal B breast cancer and poor prognosis features in Brazilian rural women

Abstract

Brazil is among the top three global consumers of pesticides, despite evidence concerning the negative impact on public health. The exposure on female rural workers has been neglected, and the incidence of pesticide-induced diseases such as breast cancer is growing. In this context, this study analyzed the impact of occupational/household pesticide exposure on the clinicopathological profile of breast cancer in rural women. Clinicopathological data were collected from medical records and analyzed from a total of 386 patients (208 exposed and 141 unexposed to pesticides). Was used descriptive and inferential statistics methods to characterize the patient data, including the chi-square test and Fisher's exact test, to evaluate associations between variables. This data was grouped as patient, tumor, and disease characteristics. Exposed patients had a prevalence of Luminal B subtype (32.83%), while unexposed patients had a prevalence of Luminal A molecular subtype (37.78%). Exposed patients also had higher disease recurrence (10.19%), chemoresistance (21.26%), and death occurrence (7.21%) than unexposed patients. Breast cancer patients exposed to pesticides were also more likely to have distant metastases and lymph node invasion compared to breast cancer unexposed patients. These findings indicate that pesticide exposure favors the occurrence of more aggressive breast cancer in rural women through occupational exposure. This results indicate that this occupational information could be added to the screening process and risk determination for breast cancer severity.