Department of Analytical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain.
Environ Health Perspect. 2011 Aug;119(8):1110-6. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1002855. Epub 2011 Apr 8.
Inhalation is one of the main means of human exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) because of their ubiquitous presence in the atmosphere. However, most studies have considered only PAHs found in the particle phase and have omitted the contribution of the gas-phase PAHs to the risk.
We estimated the lifetime lung cancer risk from PAH exposure by inhalation in people living next to the largest chemical site in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean area.
We determined 18 PAHs in the atmospheric gas and particle phase. We monitored the PAHs for 1 year in three locations near the chemical site in different seasons. We used toxic equivalence factors to calculate benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) equivalents (BaP-eq) for individual PAHs and applied the World Health Organization unit risk (UR) for BaP (UR = 8.7 × 10-5) to estimate lifetime cancer risks due to PAH exposures.
We observed some spatial and seasonal variability in PAH concentrations. The contribution of gas-phase PAHs to the total BaP-eq value was between 34% and 86%. The total estimated average lifetime lung cancer risk due to PAH exposure in the study area was 1.2 × 10-4.
The estimated risk was higher than values recommended by the World Health Organization and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency but lower than the threshold value of 10-3 that is considered an indication of definite risk according to similar risk studies. The results also showed that risk may be underestimated if the contributions of gas-phase PAHs are not considered.
由于多环芳烃（PAHs）在大气中无处不在，吸入是人类接触 PAHs 的主要途径之一。然而，大多数研究仅考虑了颗粒相中存在的 PAHs，而忽略了气相 PAHs 对风险的贡献。
我们评估了生活在欧洲南部和地中海地区最大化工区附近的人群通过吸入途径接触 PAHs 导致的肺癌终生风险。
我们测定了大气气相和颗粒相中的 18 种 PAHs。我们在化工区附近的三个位置，在不同季节监测了 1 年的 PAHs。我们使用毒性等效因子计算了单个 PAHs 的苯并[a]芘（BaP）等效物（BaP-eq），并应用世界卫生组织 BaP 单位风险（UR）（UR=8.7×10-5）来估计 PAH 暴露导致的终生癌症风险。
我们观察到 PAH 浓度存在一定的空间和季节性变化。气相 PAHs 对总 BaP-eq 值的贡献在 34%至 86%之间。研究区域内 PAH 暴露导致的终生肺癌平均估计风险为 1.2×10-4。
估计的风险高于世界卫生组织和美国环境保护署推荐的值，但低于 10-3 的阈值，根据类似的风险研究，这一阈值被认为是明确风险的指示。结果还表明，如果不考虑气相 PAHs 的贡献，风险可能会被低估。
