Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment

Abstract

first_page settings Order Article Reprints Font Type: Arial Georgia Verdana Font Size: Aa Aa Aa Line Spacing:    Column Width:    Background: Open AccessLetter Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment by Huei-An Chu 1 and Douglas Crawford-Brown 2,* 1 Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, California State University, Chico, CA 95929, USA 2 Environmental Sciences and Engineering, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2007, 4(4), 340-341; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010 Published: 31 December 2007 Download Download PDF Download PDF with Cover Download XML Download Epub Versions Notes In our previous paper, “Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment”, 2006, 3(4), 316–322, there were several errors in the table of data used in the analysis. In particular: The paper of Bates et al. [1] incorrectly listed units of concentrations. They reported in units of milligrams rather than micrograms (see the last entries in Table 3 of their paper).In the paper by Chiou et al. [2] we introduced an error ourselves. We listed the arsenic exposure level as ≤ 50; 50–70; 71+. These should be ≤ 50; 50–700; 710+.With these corrections, the pooled estimate of slopes from the seven studies using the fixed effects model becomes was 0.001 (95% CI: 0.001, 0.002), with the unit of lnRR per unit increase of exposure (exposure is in μg/L as in our original paper). The chi-square statistic was quite large (i.e. Q = 497.752 on 6 degrees of freedom, p= 0.00), which rejects the null hypothesis of homogeneity and means there was evidence of heterogeneity. Using the random-effect model, and including only the five studies identified in the original paper as most relevant (excluding Bates et al [1] and Kurttio et al [3]), the pooled estimate of the slopes from the five studies was found to be 0.002 (exposure also in units of per μg/L) (95% CI: −0.001, 0.006).The new result of the meta-analysis still supports the claim that there is a positive dose-response relationship between exposure to arsenic in drinking water and bladder cancer. Table 1 summarizes the revised results of the absolute risk (AR) calculation for bladder cancer associated with a variety of proposed MCLs (maximum contaminant levels) using different estimates from the meta-analysis: the best estimate, the upper-bound and lower-bound estimates of the slope factor. The best (revised) estimate of the slope factor from the meta-analysis is 1.64 × 10−5 (with unit of probability per μg/kg/day), with the upper bound of 5.38 × 10−5. These slope factors from the meta-analysis are lower than the ones from the EPA (1.5 × 10−3) and NRC (8.85 × 10−4).If readers would like the revised figures and tables from the paper, please contact the corresponding author, at the above-referenced address. Table 1:. Risk of bladder cancer at different MCLs Table 1:. Risk of bladder cancer at different MCLs MCL (ppb)AR (u_95)AR (Mean)AR (L_95)00001−1.80E-071.08E-06−1.80E-073−5.39E-073.27E-06−5.39E-075−8.98E-075.48E-06−8.98E-0710−1.79E-061.11E-05−1.79E-0620−3.56E-062.29E-05−3.56E-0650−8.78E-066.30E-05−8.78E-06 ReferencesBates, MN; Rey, OA; Biggs, ML; Hopenhayn, C; Moore, LE; Kalman, D; Steinmaus, C; Smith, AH. Case-control study of bladder cancer and exposure to arsenic in Argentina. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2004, 159(4), 381–389. [Google Scholar]Chiou, H-Y; Chiou, S-T; Hsu, Y-H; Chou, Y-L; Tseng, C-H; Wei, M-L; Chen, C-J. Incidence of transitional cell carcinoma and arsenic in drinking water: A follow-up study of 8,102 residents in an arseniasis-endemic area in Northeastern Taiwan. American Journal of Epidemiology 2001, 153(5), 411–418. [Google Scholar]Kurttio, P; Pukkala, E; Kahelin, H; Auvinen, A; Pekkanen, J. Arsenic concentrations in well water and risk of bladder and kidney cancer in Finland. Environ. Health Perspectives 1999, 107(9), 705–710. [Google Scholar] © 2007 MDPI All rights reserved. Share and Cite MDPI and ACS Style Chu, H.-A.; Crawford-Brown, D. Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2007, 4, 340-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010 AMA Style Chu H-A, Crawford-Brown D. Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2007; 4(4):340-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010 Chicago/Turabian Style Chu, Huei-An, and Douglas Crawford-Brown. 2007. "Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 4, no. 4: 340-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010 Find Other Styles Article Metrics No No Article Access Statistics For more information on the journal statistics, click here. Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view.