Breast Cancer and Exposure to Organochlorines in the CECILE Study: Associations with Plasma Levels Measured at the Time of Diagnosis and Estimated during Adolescence

Delphine Bachelet, Marc-André Verner, Monica Neri, Émilie Cordina Duverger, Corinne Charlier, Patrick Arveux, Sami Haddad and Pascal Guénel
Additional contact information
Delphine Bachelet: Inserm U 1018, Center for research in Epidemiology and Population Health (CESP), University Paris-Sud, Paris-Saclay, 94807 Villejuif, France
Marc-André Verner: Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health, IRSPUM, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada
Monica Neri: Inserm U 1018, Center for research in Epidemiology and Population Health (CESP), University Paris-Sud, Paris-Saclay, 94807 Villejuif, France
Émilie Cordina Duverger: Inserm U 1018, Center for research in Epidemiology and Population Health (CESP), University Paris-Sud, Paris-Saclay, 94807 Villejuif, France
Corinne Charlier: Department of Toxicology, University of Liège, Sart Tilman University Hospital, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Patrick Arveux: Department of Medical Information, Centre Georges-François Leclerc, 21000 Dijon, France
Sami Haddad: Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health, IRSPUM, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada
Pascal Guénel: Inserm U 1018, Center for research in Epidemiology and Population Health (CESP), University Paris-Sud, Paris-Saclay, 94807 Villejuif, France

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: Exposure to environmental chemicals with hormonal effects, such as organochlorine compounds (OCs), during developmental periods of breast cells may have an impact on the incidence of breast cancer later in life. However, the assessment of exposure to these chemicals that occurred in early life at the time of breast cancer development in adult women is a difficult challenge in epidemiological studies. Plasma levels of the OCs p,p’-dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethene (DDE) and polychlorinated biphenyl congener 153 (PCB153) were measured in 695 cases and 1055 controls of a population-based case-control study conducted in France (CECILE study). Based on these values, we used a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model to estimate PCB153 levels at age 11–20 years when the women were adolescents. Overall, there was no clear association between breast cancer risk and measured levels of DDE and PCB153 at the time of diagnosis, but there was a trend of decreasing odds ratios of breast cancer with increasing DDE and PCB153 levels in women aged 50 years and over. The PBPK model revealed that PCB153 concentrations estimated during adolescence were highest in the youngest women born after 1960 who reached adolescence at a time when environmental contamination was maximum, and very low in the oldest women who attained adolescence before the contamination peak. Negative associations between breast cancer and PCB153 estimates during adolescence were also found. The negative associations between DDE and PCB153 levels measured at the time of diagnosis or estimated during adolescence in our study were unexplained. Further investigations are needed to clarify whether this finding is real or related to study artifacts. However, this study suggests that using PBPK models in epidemiological studies to back-estimate OC exposures during early life stages may be useful to address critical questions on cancer development.

Keywords: breast cancer; persistent organic pollutants; endocrine disruptor chemicals; physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling; case-control study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/2/271/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/2/271/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:2:p:271-:d:198913

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().