Review of Epidemiological Research of Cancer Related to Pesticide Exposure / 日本農村医学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

The authors reviewed the English language papers concerning chronic health effects of agricultural chemicals, focusing on the incidence of cancer in pesticide users. These papers were collected using MEDLINE between 1988 and 1998 as a referencetool. According to the standard study design, the epidemiological literature is classified into cohort studies and case-control studies. These studies suggested the association between pesticides and various types of cancer such as soft tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, lung cancer, and breast cancer. Categories of pesticides included in these studies, varied greatly, including herbicides and insecticides.<BR>In this paper, we discussed about such problems as the selection of control groups and the assessment of pesticide exposure levels, which may pose some problems in conducting epidemiological research on the relationship between pesticides and cancer.<BR>A model for a method of epidemiological study of health hazards due to pesticide exposure was also presented.