Avoided and Avoidable Risks of Cancer

Details

• Personal Author:
  Axelson O ; Barrett JC ; Blair, Austin ; Bofetta P ; Bucher J ; Hertz-Picciotto I ; Huff J ; Sandler DP ; Stayner L ; Taylor J ; Tomatis L
• Description:
  Despite the considerable efforts and funds devoted to cancer research over several decades, cancer still remains a mainly lethal disease. Cancer incidence and mortality have not declined at the same rate as other major causes of death, indicating that primary prevention remains a most valuable approach to decrease mortality. There is general agreement that environmental exposures are variously involved in the causation of the majority of cancer cases and that at least half of all cancers could be avoided by applying existing etiologic knowledge. There is disagreement, however, regarding the proportion of cancer risks attributable to specific etiological factors, including diet, occupation and pollution. Estimates of attributable risks are largely based today on unverified assumptions and the calculation of attributable risks involves taking very unequal evidence of various types of factors and a treating them equally. Effective primary prevention resulting in a reduction of cancer risk can be obtained by a reduction in the number of carcinogens to which humans are exposed; or a reduction of the exposure levels to carcinogens. Exposure levels that could be seen as sufficiently low when based on single agents, may actually not be safe in the context of the many other concomitant carcinogenic and mutagenic exposures. The list of human carcinogens and of their target organs might be quite different if: epidemiological data were available for a larger proportion of human exposures for which there is experimental evidence of carcinogenicity; more attention was paid to epidemiological evidence that is suggestive of an exposure-cancer association, but is less than sufficient, particularly in identifying target organs; and experimental evidence of carcinogenicity, supported by mechanistic considerations, were more fully accepted as predictions of human risk. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Carcinogens Environmental Exposure Environmental Health Mortality Mutagens Neoplasms Occupational Health Preventive Medicine Safety
• Keywords:
  Cancer Cancer-rates Environmental-exposure Environmental-factors Etiology Mortality-data Mortality-rates Mutagenesis Pretreatment Preventive-medicine
• ISSN:
  0143-3334
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  EID - Education and Information Division
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  97-105
• Volume:
  18
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20024926
• Citation:
  Carcinogenesis 1997 Jan; 18(1):97-105
• Contact Point Address:
  National Institute of Enviromental Health Sciences, PO Box 12233, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2233, USA
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1997
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Carcinogenesis
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3471915bf867781103fa5a362de241da7f53fa643e86e996395cc4aff14c1ada83485f1d17b0ffe9fd8aa37dc33d38618c942348c3af79a45ef205190174172d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/196497/cdc_196497_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 102.11 KB ]