Abstract
Introduction: Two specific events that occurred during the Persian Gulf War made a severe impact on the environment of the region. In late January 1991, millions of barrels of crude oil were released into the Persian Gulf from tankers and oil terminals and Less than one month later, nearly 700 Kuwaiti oil wells, storage tanks, refineries and facilities were blown up and set on fire and sizeable amount of depleted uranium was introduced into the environment. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of exposure in the incidence cancer.
Methods: A cancer registry monitoring both cancer incidence and mortality was set up in the exposed population (provinces bordering Iraq) and unexposed population (provinces located where no exposures were documented, eastern part of the country). The cancer specific incidence and mortality ration was calculated for the exposed and unexposed.
Results: Apart from the cancers of stomach, prostate, colon and breast, the solid tumors of lung, liver were relatively and unexpectedly more frequent than other cancer sites in the exposed population compared with unexposed. In female the average rate ration for Lymphoma was as high as 3.5 but in the male this figure was 1.4. No differences in Leukemia were seen in male but the female experienced in average 40% more risk of leukemia in comparison with the females in the non exposed area. Different cancer sites were examined. And wide ranges of varation were seen in terms of mortality or morbidity ratios.
Conclusion: The highly diverse nature of the exposure has imposed a certain degree of cancer risk to the population exposed.
Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(1 Suppl):B137.
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