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to Winter Spring News | WINTER/SPRING
2007
COMMUNITY CORNER . . .
Reported Residential Pesticide Use and Breast
Cancer Risk on Long Island, New York
Pesticides, common environmental exposures, have been examined
in relation to breast cancer primarily in occupational studies
or exposure biomarker studies. No known studies have focused on
self-reported residential pesticide use. The authors investigated
the association between reported lifetime residential pesticide
use and breast cancer risk among women living on Long Island, New
York. They conducted a population-based casecontrol study of 1,508
women newly diagnosed with breast cancer between August 1996 and
July 1997 and 1,556 randomly selected, age-frequency-matched controls.
Comprehensive residential pesticide use and other risk factors
were assessed by using an in-person, intervieweradministered questionnaire.
Unconditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds
ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Breast cancer risk was associated
with over lifetime residential pesticide use (odds ratio = 1.39,
95% confidence interval: 1.15, 1.68). However, there was no evidence
of increasing risk with increasing lifetime applications. Lawn
and garden pesticide use was associated with breast cancer risk,
but there was no dose response. Little or no association was found
for nuisancepest pesticides, insect repellants, or products to
control lice or fleas and ticks on pets. This study is the first
known to suggest that self-reported use of residential pesticides
may increase breast cancer risk. Further investigation in other
populations is necessary to confirm these findings.
Abstract: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/
Full Text: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/
PDF: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/
The full citation article is: Reported Residential Pesticide Use
and Breast Cancer Risk on Long Island, New York Susan L. Teitelbaum;
Marilie D. Gammon; Julie A. Britton; Alfred I. Neugut; Bruce Levin;
Steven D. Stellman American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access
published online on December 13, 2006.
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