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. 2022 Jul 29:10:957069.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.957069. eCollection 2022.

Assessing volatile organic compounds exposure and prostate-specific antigen: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2001-2010

Chengcheng Wei  1 , Yumao Chen  2 , Yu Yang  3 , Dong Ni  1 , Yu Huang  1 , Miao Wang  1 , Xiong Yang  1 , Zhaohui Chen  1
Affiliations

Assessing volatile organic compounds exposure and prostate-specific antigen: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2001-2010

Chengcheng Wei et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a large group of chemicals widely used in people's daily routines. Increasing evidence revealed the VOCs' accumulating toxicity. However, the VOCs toxicity in male prostate has not been reported previously. Thus, we comprehensively evaluated the association between VOCs and prostate-specific antigen (PSA).

Methods: A total of 2016 subjects were included in our study from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with VOCs, PSA, and other variables among U.S. average population. We constructed XGBoost Algorithm Model, Regression Model, and Generalized linear Model (GAM) to analyze the potential association. Stratified analysis was used to identify high-risk populations.

Results: XGBoost Algorithm model identified blood chloroform as the most critical variable in the PSA concentration. Regression analysis suggested that blood chloroform was a positive association with PSA, which showed that environmental chloroform exposure is an independent risk factor that may cause prostate gland changes [β, (95% CI), P = 0.007, (0.003, 0.011), 0.00019]. GAM observed the linear relationship between blood chloroform and PSA concentration. Meanwhile, blood chloroform linear correlated with water chloroform in the lower dose range, indicating that the absorption of water may be the primary origin of chloroform. Stratified associations analysis identified the high-risk group on the chloroform exposures.

Conclusion: This study revealed that blood chloroform was positively and independently associated with total PSA level, suggesting that long-term environmental chloroform exposure may cause changes in the prostate gland.

Keywords: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); chloroform; prostate-specific antigen (PSA); public health; volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart for selecting analyzed participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
XGBoost model reveals the relative importance of blood VOCs on the PSA concentration and the corresponding variable importance score. The X-axis indicates the importance score, the relative number of a variable used to distribute the data; the Y-axis shows the blood VOCs.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Blood Chloroform and PSA concentrations/Water Chloroform (A) The linear relationship between the blood chloroform and total PSA; (B) The nonlinear relationship between the blood chloroform and water chloroform.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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