Abstract
Lung cancer frequency has been progressively increasing; this has been linked to the use of inhaled tobacco and air pollution. In Chile, air pollution has reached alarming levels due to motor vehicle traffic, firewood burning for heating and minerals in urban areas; for this reason, our objective was to evaluate the association between the incidence of lung cancer and the concentration of the main air pollutants monitored in the country. We carried out a cross-sectional ecological study that evaluated the association between the average incidence of lung cancer in a 5-year period (2015–2019) with the average annual concentration of six atmospheric pollutants in the 5 years prior in 14 Chilean boroughs, using the population of beneficiaries of the Fundación Arturo-López-Pérez Cancer Institute. The annualised incidence of lung cancer was 9.77 per 100,000 and it varied significantly within the boroughs studied. When evaluating the relationship between lung-cancer incidence and the average concentration of atmospheric pollutants, we only found a direct and significant correlation between the level of respirable particulates 2.5 and the incidence of adenocarcinomas (β: 0.16; p: 0.023).
Highlights
Since 1950, there has been an increasing trend in the incidence of lung cancer worldwide, especially in high-income countries according to the World Bank classification
This study aims to evaluate whether there is a demonstrable association between the incidence of lung cancer and the concentration of the main air pollutants monitored in Chile through an ecological study based on epidemiological data from patients from the Fundación Arturo López Pérez Cancer Institute in Santiago, Chile residing in one of 14 boroughs selected for their good records of the presence of six atmospheric pollutants
We evaluated the effect of air pollution on the incidence rate of lung cancer and lung adenocarcinoma, all as continuous variables, considering age and Human Develop Index (HDI) by commune
Summary
Since 1950, there has been an increasing trend in the incidence of lung cancer worldwide, especially in high-income countries according to the World Bank classification. This increase has been related to different factors, but causality has been established in two of them: the consumption of inhaled tobacco and environmental pollution, mainly by inhalable particulate material.
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