Abstract PO-184: Air pollution in relation to risk of pancreatic cancer in the Multiethnic Cohort Study

Background: There are limited studies that have investigated the association between ambient gaseous and particulate matter (PM) air pollutants and risk of pancreatic cancer. Results from published studies are inconsistent, the strongest evidence was a significant, 16% increase in risk of pancreatic cancer mortality per 10 µg/m3 increase in PM <2.5 µm (PM2.5) in China. We used data from the Multiethnic Cohort Study to examine prospectively associations between ambient air pollutants and incident pancreatic cancer, while adjusting for a comprehensive list of confounding factors. Methods: Kriging Interpolation was used to estimate individual, time varying, monthly, air pollutant exposure levels of nitrogen oxides (NOX, NO2) and PM (PM2.5, PM10) pollutants for 100,527 men and women, who resided largely in Los Angeles County at the time of enrollment (1993-1996) through 2014. We observed 844 incident cases of pancreatic cancer among cohort members during the 18-years of follow up. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the association between each air pollutant and risk of pancreatic cancer. All models adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, neighborhood socioeconomic status, body mass index, diabetes mellitus, and smoking history. Results: PM2.5 was non-significantly positively associated with risk of pancreatic cancer (hazard ratio [HR]=1.33; 95% CI: 0.91, 1.95 per 10 µg/m3). No associations were observed with other pollutants (PM10 [HR=0.99; 95% CI=0.96, 1.07 per 10 ppb], NO2 [HR=0.99, 95% CI 0.93; 1.17], NOx [HR=1.01 95% CI=0.96, 1.07]). In stratified analyses, we did not observe heterogeneity by race/ethnicity (PM2.5 p=0.17, PM10 p=0.16, NO2 p=0.30, NOx p=0.27) or smoking status (PM2.5 p=0.72, PM10 p=0.85, NO2 p=0.53, NOx p=0.28). Conclusions: In this prospective cohort study of air pollution and risk of pancreatic cancer, we did not observe an increase in risk associated with PM2.5, PM10, NO2, or NOx. These results add to the scarce data on the association between air pollution and pancreatic cancer risk.

Citation Format: David Bogumil, Anna H. Wu, Daniel Stram, Chiu-Chen Tseng, Iona Cheng, Veronica Wendy Setiawan. Air pollution in relation to risk of pancreatic cancer in the Multiethnic Cohort Study [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: Thirteenth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2020 Oct 2-4. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(12 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-184.