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. 2020 May 28;17(11):3833.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17113833.

Cancer Incidence Trends in the Oil Shale Industrial Region in Estonia

Jane Idavain  1   2 , Katrin Lang  1 , Jelena Tomasova  3 , Aavo Lang  4 , Hans Orru  1   5
Affiliations

Cancer Incidence Trends in the Oil Shale Industrial Region in Estonia

Jane Idavain et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Large oil shale resources are found in Eastern Estonia, where the mineral resource is mined, excavated, and used for electricity generation and shale oil extraction. During industrial activities in the last 100 years, pollutants have been emitted in large amounts, some of which are toxic and carcinogenic. The current study aims to analyse time trends in cancer incidence in the oil shale industry-affected areas and compare them with overall cancer incidence rates and trends in Estonia. We analysed Estonian Cancer Registry data on selected cancer sites that have been previously indicated to have relationships with industrial activities like oil shale extraction. We included lung cancer, kidney cancer, urinary bladder cancer, leukaemia, breast cancer, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. A statistically significantly higher lung cancer age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) was found during the study period (1992-2015) only in males in the oil shale areas as compared to males in Estonia overall: 133.6 and 95.5 per 100,000, respectively. However, there appeared to be a statistically significant (p < 0.05) decrease in the lung cancer ASIR in males in the oil shale areas (overall decrease 28.9%), whereas at the same time, there was a significant increase (p < 0.05) in non-oil shale areas (13.3%) and in Estonia overall (1.5%). Other cancer sites did not show higher ASIRs in the oil shale industrial areas compared to other areas in Estonia. Possible explanations could be improved environmental quality, socio-economic factors, and other morbidities.

Keywords: air pollution; lung cancer; occupational health; oil shale.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of Northern Europe showing the location of Estonia (left). Map of Ida-Viru County, Estonia, showing different municipalities (right). Municipalities under observation: oil-shale production and mining areas—brown, non-oil shale areas—green. The locations of shale oil extraction facilities are shown as red dots. The maps were made with QGIS 2.18 software. The administrative boundaries were provided by EuroGeographics and Estonian Land Board [56,57].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Age-standardized incidence rates for cancer sites in oil shale (brown line) areas, non-oil shale (green line) areas and Estonia overall (blue line). Cancer trendlines are represented with dashed lines.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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