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Review
. 2022 Nov 9;10(11):676.
doi: 10.3390/toxics10110676.

Impact of Pesticides on Cancer and Congenital Malformation: A Systematic Review

Viviane Serra Melanda  1   2 , Maria Eduarda A Galiciolli  1   2 , Luíza S Lima  1   2 , Bonald C Figueiredo  1   2 , Cláudia S Oliveira  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Impact of Pesticides on Cancer and Congenital Malformation: A Systematic Review

Viviane Serra Melanda et al. Toxics. .

Abstract

Pesticide exposure has deleterious effects on human health and development; however, no review has been conducted on human exposure to pesticides and the risk of congenital malformations and cancer in the same cohort. We systematically reviewed the evidence for this relationship following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines. Four databases, namely, PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and BVS, were searched for studies deposited till July 2020 that examined the influence of pesticide exposure on congenital malformations and cancer outcomes in the same cohort. Seven studies were systematically included in this review. Among these, four were case-control studies, two were cross-sectional studies, and one was a longitudinal cohort study. The sources of contamination were food, water, or exposure during agricultural work. A link between the occurrence of cancer, congenital malformations, and exposure to pesticides was observed in most studies.

Keywords: birth defect; cancer; congenital malformations; environmental contaminants; neoplasm; pesticides.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Global numbers of deaths by cancer over the years, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Incidence of global new cases of cancer (%) in 2020, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Deaths by congenital malformation over the years in Africa, America, Asia, and Europe, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Kilograms of pesticides used by hectares of crops worldwide over the years, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Pesticide registration timeline in different countries, according to World Health Organization.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Kilograms of pesticides consumed by hectare in different counties, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Prisma flow diagram.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Risk of bias performed by ACROBAT-NRSI [57]. Green squares (+) mean a low risk of bias and yellow squares (?) mean an uncertain risk of bias [27,31,58,59,60,61,62].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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