Inhalation cancer risk associated with exposure to complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures in an electronic waste and urban area in South China - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2012 Sep 4;46(17):9745-52.

doi: 10.1021/es302272a. Epub 2012 Aug 22.

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Inhalation cancer risk associated with exposure to complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures in an electronic waste and urban area in South China

Jing Wang et al. Environ Sci Technol. 2012.

Abstract

Atmospheric particulate matter samples were collected from May 2010 to April 2011 in a rural e-waste area and in Guangzhou, South China, to estimate the lifetime inhalation cancer risk from exposure to parent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), high molecular weight PAHs (MW 302 PAHs), and halogenated PAHs (HPAHs). Seasonal variations in the PAH concentrations and profiles within and between the e-waste and urban areas indicated different PAH sources in the two areas. Benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, dibenz[ah]anthracene, and dibenzo[al]pyrene made the most significant contribution to the inhalation cancer risk. MW 302 PAHs accounted for 18.0% of the total cancer risk in the e-waste area and 13.6% in the urban area, while HPAHs made a minor contribution (<0.1%) in both the areas. The number of lifetime excess lung cancers due to exposure to parent PAHs, MW 302 PAHs, and HPAHs ranged from 15.1 to 1198 per million people in the e-waste area and from 9.3 to 737 per million people in Guangzhou. PAH exposure accounted for 0.02 to 1.94% of the total lung cancer cases in Guangzhou. On average, the inhalation cancer risk in the e-waste area was 1.6 times higher than in the urban area. The e-waste dismantling activities in South China led to higher inhalation cancer risk due to PAH exposure than the urban area.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Monthly mean BaPeq concentration of ΣPPAH12-BaPeq and Σ302PAH5-BaPeq in TSP collected from the e-waste and urban areas. The error bars represent the standard deviations of total concentration of 17 PAHs. The BaPeq concentrations of ΣHPAH23-BaPeq are not shown because of their low percentage contribution to the total BaPeq concentrations. Statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) between the e-waste and urban areas are indicated by *for parent PAHs and# for MW 302 PAHs.

Figure 2

Figure 2

The mean BaPeq concentration profiles of the individual PAHs and total halogenated PAHs in the e-waste and urban areas in different seasons.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Estimated number of excess inhalation cancer cases per million people for selected PAHs measured on TSP in the e-waste and urban areas. The left y-axes based on a URBaP value of 1.1×10−6 per ng/m3 from a rodent study (OEHHA 1993); right y-axes based on a URBaP value of 8.7 × 10−5 per ng/m3 from an epidemiology study (WHO 2000). The boxes represent the 25th and 75th percentiles, the whiskers represent the 10th and 90th percentiles, and the short dash and solid lines within the boxes represent the mean and median, respectively.

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