Herbicide use in farming and other jobs in relation to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) risk

Anneclaire J De Roos¹, Lin Fritschi², Mary H Ward³, Alain Monnereau^{4

5}, Jonathan Hofmann³, Leslie Bernstein⁶, Parveen Bhatti⁷, Yolanda Benavente Moreno^{8

9}, Geza Benke¹⁰, Delphine Casabonne^{8

9}, Jacqueline Clavel⁵, Pierluigi Cocco^{11

12}, Tran Huynh¹³, Andrea 't Mannetje¹⁴, Lucia Miligi¹⁵, Sara Piro¹⁵, Nathaniel Rothman³, Leah H Schinasi¹³, Claire M Vajdic¹⁶, Sophia S Wang¹⁷, Yawei Zhang¹⁸, Susan L Slager^{19

20}, James R Cerhan²¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA aderoos@drexel.edu.
² School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
³ Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
⁴ Registre des Hémopathies Malignes de la Gironde, Institut Bergonié, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
⁵ Epidemiology of Childhood and Adolescent Cancers Group, Center of Research in Epidemiology and Statistics Sorbonne Paris Cité (CRESS), INSERM, Paris, France.
⁶ Division of Biomarkers of Early Detection and Prevention, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, California, USA.
⁷ Cancer Control Research, BC Cancer, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
⁸ Cancer Epidemiology Research Program, Institut Català d'Oncologia (ICO)/Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge (IDIBELL), L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
⁹ Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red: Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁰ Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
¹¹ Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Division of Population Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
¹² Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
¹³ Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
¹⁴ Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.
¹⁵ Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology Branch, Institute for Cancer Research, Prevention and Clinical Network (ISPRO), Florence, Italy.
¹⁶ The Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, Australia.
¹⁷ Division of Health Analytics, Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, California, USA.
¹⁸ National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
¹⁹ Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Division of Computational Biology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
²⁰ Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
²¹ Division of Epidemiology, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.

PMID: 36207110
PMCID: PMC9669193
DOI: 10.1136/oemed-2022-108371

Herbicide use in farming and other jobs in relation to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) risk

Anneclaire J De Roos et al. Occup Environ Med. 2022 Dec.

. 2022 Dec;79(12):795-806.

doi: 10.1136/oemed-2022-108371. Epub 2022 Oct 7.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA aderoos@drexel.edu.
² School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
³ Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
⁴ Registre des Hémopathies Malignes de la Gironde, Institut Bergonié, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
⁵ Epidemiology of Childhood and Adolescent Cancers Group, Center of Research in Epidemiology and Statistics Sorbonne Paris Cité (CRESS), INSERM, Paris, France.
⁶ Division of Biomarkers of Early Detection and Prevention, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, California, USA.
⁷ Cancer Control Research, BC Cancer, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
⁸ Cancer Epidemiology Research Program, Institut Català d'Oncologia (ICO)/Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge (IDIBELL), L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
⁹ Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red: Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁰ Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
¹¹ Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Division of Population Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
¹² Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
¹³ Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
¹⁴ Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.
¹⁵ Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology Branch, Institute for Cancer Research, Prevention and Clinical Network (ISPRO), Florence, Italy.
¹⁶ The Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, Australia.
¹⁷ Division of Health Analytics, Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, California, USA.
¹⁸ National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
¹⁹ Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Division of Computational Biology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
²⁰ Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
²¹ Division of Epidemiology, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.

PMID: 36207110
PMCID: PMC9669193
DOI: 10.1136/oemed-2022-108371

Abstract

Objectives: Given mixed evidence for carcinogenicity of current-use herbicides, we studied the relationship between occupational herbicide use and risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in a large, pooled study.

Methods: We pooled data from 10 case-control studies participating in the International Lymphoma Epidemiology Consortium, including 9229 cases and 9626 controls from North America, the European Union and Australia. Herbicide use was coded from self-report or by expert assessment in the individual studies, for herbicide groups (eg, phenoxy herbicides) and active ingredients (eg, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), glyphosate). The association between each herbicide and NHL risk was estimated using logistic regression to produce ORs and 95% CIs, with adjustment for sociodemographic factors, farming and other pesticides.

Results: We found no substantial association of all NHL risk with ever-use of any herbicide (OR=1.10, 95% CI: 0.94 to 1.29), nor with herbicide groups or active ingredients. Elevations in risk were observed for NHL subtypes with longer duration of phenoxy herbicide use, such as for any phenoxy herbicide with multiple myeloma (>25.5 years, OR=1.78, 95% CI: 0.74 to 4.27), 2,4-D with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (>25.5 years, OR=1.47, 95% CI: 0.67 to 3.21) and other (non-2,4-D) phenoxy herbicides with T-cell lymphoma (>6 years, lagged 10 years, OR=3.24, 95% CI: 1.03 to 10.2). An association between glyphosate and follicular lymphoma (lagged 10 years: OR=1.48, 95% CI: 0.98 to 2.25) was fairly consistent across analyses.

Conclusions: Most of the herbicides examined were not associated with NHL risk. However, associations of phenoxy herbicides and glyphosate with particular NHL subtypes underscore the importance of estimating subtype-specific risks.

Keywords: epidemiology; occupational health; pesticides.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

**Figure 1**
Sensitivity and alternative analyses of selected associations between occupational herbicide use and risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and NHL subtypes (ORs and 95% CIs from logistic regression models, with adjustment for study centre, age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), race/Hispanic ethnicity, farm work history and a set of covariates for use of other pesticides). NHL subtypes: 2,4-D, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid; DLBCL, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma; FL, follicular lymphoma; MM, multiple myeloma; TCL, T cell lymphoma. ‘Change in OR’ refers to the OR change from the main analysis to the alternative/sensitivity analysis.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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Herbicide use in farming and other jobs in relation to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) risk

Affiliations

Herbicide use in farming and other jobs in relation to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) risk

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Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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