IFC- National Research Council,via Trieste 41, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
Environ Health. 2011 Apr 5;10 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S1. doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-10-S1-S1.
As an introduction to the series of papers arising from the first 'Lorenzo Tomatis Conference on Environment and Cancer' , Tomatis' contributions to research in cancer prevention are first noted, especially the ongoing programme 'IARC Monographs on Carcinogenic Risk for humans' that he established at the International Agency for Research on Cancer' , of which he was the Director from 1982 to 1993. The programme, started in 1972, has become an international authoritative reference and represents an early 'evidence-based' development bringing together a comprehensive evaluation of both experimental and epidemiological data. Next the recurrent issue of how large is the contribution of environmental factors to cancer etiology is examined pointing to the several limitations making estimates of the population fraction of cancers attributable to environment delicate to interpret or sometimes even misleading. Finally mention is made of societal issues such as social inequalities in cancer occurrence and fatality, communication in the clinical oncology and cancer prevention and screening areas and the relation between these and the blossoming basic cancer research boosted by the revolution in molecular biology and genetics.
作为第一届“洛伦佐·托马蒂斯环境与癌症会议”系列论文的引言，首先提到了托马蒂斯在癌症预防研究方面的贡献，特别是他在国际癌症研究机构（IARC）设立的正在进行的“IARC 对人类致癌风险的专题论文集”项目，他于 1982 年至 1993 年担任该机构主任。该项目始于 1972 年，已成为国际权威参考资料，代表了一种早期的“循证”发展，综合评估了实验和流行病学数据。接下来，本文探讨了环境因素对癌症病因学的贡献有多大这一反复出现的问题，指出了使环境归因于癌症的人群比例估计存在若干局限性的问题，这些局限性使得解释或有时甚至误导这些估计变得复杂。最后，本文提到了一些社会问题，如癌症发生和死亡的社会不平等、临床肿瘤学和癌症预防及筛查领域的信息交流，以及这些问题与分子生物学和遗传学革命推动的基础癌症研究的蓬勃发展之间的关系。
