Traffic air pollution and lung cancer in females in Taiwan: petrol station density as an indicator of disease development

Abstract

To investigate the relationship between traffic air pollution exposure and development of lung cancer in females, studies were conducted using a matched cancer case-control model into deaths that occurred in Taiwan from 1997 through 2006. Data on all eligible lung cancer deaths in females were obtained from the Bureau of Vital Statistics of the Taiwan Provincial Department of Health. The control group consisted of women who died from causes other than neoplasms or diseases that were associated with respiratory problems. The controls were pair matched to the cancer cases by year of birth and year of death. Each matched control was selected randomly from the set of possible controls for each case. Data on the number of petrol stations in study municipalities were collected from the two major petroleum supply companies, Chinese Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC). The petrol station density (per square kilometer; PSD) for study municipalities was used as an indicator of a subject's exposure to benzene and other hydrocarbons present in ambient evaporative losses of petrol or to air emissions from motor vehicles. The subjects were divided into tertiles according to PSD in their residential municipality. The results showed that there was a significant exposure-response relationship between PSD and risk of lung cancer in females after controlling for possible confounders. The findings of this study warrant further investigation of the role of traffic air pollution exposure in the etiology of lung cancer.