Invited Perspective: The Slow Road to Finding Out Whether the “Forever” Chemicals Cause Chronic Disease
Menée auprès de 530 témoins et 530 militaires de l'US AirForce atteints d'une tumeur germinale du testicule, cette étude analyse l'association entre la concentration sérique en substances per- et polyfluoroalkylées et le risque de développer la maladie
Testicular and kidney cancer are the two cancer types with the strongest evidence for an association with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), although the literature remains rather sparse for both.1,2 The article in this issue of Environmental Health Perspectives by Purdue et al.3—which describes testicular cancer among active-duty U.S. Air Force servicemen in relation to PFAS exposure—provides a valuable contribution to the literature.
The authors conducted a relatively large case–control study of 530 individuals with testicular cancer whose cancer was diagnosed during active service (age 18–39 y) and matched controls. Purdue et al. took advantage of serum samples routinely banked for all service members to assess the association of testicular cancer with prediagnostic PFAS serum concentrations. Most of the serum samples were taken shortly after the study participants began their service. For an additional 187 cases and controls, the authors analyzed a second prediagnostic serum sample taken on average 6 y after military service began. First serum samples of PFAS were compared to PFAS serum data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which reflect levels in the general population, and levels were found to be similar. Second samples were similar to first, and fewer than 1 percent<1% of subjects had fire-fighting jobs, which led to higher exposure. So, in essence, this was a low-exposure population. In their case–control analyses, the authors found a positive trend in risk for testicular cancer by serum perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) using the first samples (lowercase italic p equals 0.15p=0.15) and a more marked monotonic positive trend (lowercase italic p equals 0.009p=0.009) when analyzing second samples, after adjusting for other PFAS.
Environmental Health Perspectives , éditorial en libre accès, 2022