Associations of a mixture of eleven endocrine disruptors in human urine with the risk of papillary thyroid cancer

Abstract

To examine the associations of human exposure to a mixture of 11 endocrine disruptors(EDCs) with the risk of papillary thyroid cancer(PTC), and to identify the priority of these EDCs. EDCs were determined in fasting urine specimens to represent human exposure. Logistics regressions were performed to examine the associations between individual EDC and PTC risk. Bayes kernel machine regression was applied to examine the associations between the mixture of EDCs and PTC risk. Weighted quantile sum(WQS) regression and LASSO regression were performed to identify the main contributor. In the multivariate logistic regression model, after adjusting for a series of variables, 11 endocrine disruptors were statistically significantly correlated with the risk of PTC(P<0.05). In BKMR models, the mixture of EDCs was positively correlated with the risk of PTC(P<0.05). The weight and coefficient of mono(2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate(MEHHP) was 0.62 and 1.58 in WQS and LASSO models, respectively, which were much higher than those of the other EDCs. Combined exposure to o a variety of EDCs might promote the risk of PTC, and MEHHP was identified as the main contributor.