Publication details

In-home coal and wood use and lung cancer risk: a pooled-analysis of the International Lung Cancer Consortium.

Authors	HOSGOOD H. D. BOFFETTA P. GREENLAND S. LEE Yuan-Chin Amy MCLAUGHLIN J. SEOW A. DUELL E. ANDREW A. ZARIDZE D. SZESZENIA-DABROWSKA N. RUDNAI P. LISSOWSKA J. FABIANOVA Eleonora MATES D. BENCKO V. FORETOVÁ Lenka JANOUT V. MORGENSTERN H. ROTHMAN N. HUNG R. BRENNAN P. LAN Q.
Year of publication	2010
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	Environmental health perspectives
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Medicine
Citation
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1002217
Field	Oncology and hematology
Keywords	coal; lung cancer; pooled; risk factor; wood
Description	Domestic fuel combustion from cooking and heating is an important public health issue because roughly 3 billion people are exposed worldwide. Recently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified indoor emissions from household coal combustion as a human carcinogen (group 1) and from biomass fuel (primarily wood) as a probable human carcinogen (group 2A). OBJECTIVES: We pooled seven studies from the International Lung Cancer Consortium (5,105 cases and 6,535 controls) to provide further epidemiological evaluation of the association between in-home solid-fuel use, particularly wood, and lung cancer risk. METHODS: Using questionnaire data, we classified subjects as predominant solid-fuel users (e. g., coal, wood) or nonsolid-fuel users (e.g., oil, gas, electricity). Unconditional logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and to compute 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusting for age, sex, education, smoking status, race/ethnicity, and study center. RESULTS: Compared with nonsolid-fuel users, predominant coal users (OR = 1.64; 95% CI, 1.49-1.81), particularly coal users in Asia (OR = 4.93; 95% CI, 3.73-6.52), and predominant wood users in North American and European countries (OR = 1.21; 95% CI, 1.06-1.38) experienced higher risk of lung cancer. The results were similar in never-smoking women and other subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with previous observations pertaining to in-home coal use and lung cancer risk, support the hypothesis of a carcinogenic potential of in-home wood use, and point to the need for more detailed study of factors affecting these associations.