Bond G G, Bodner K M, Cook R R
Department of Epidemiology, Dow Chemical Company, Midland, Michigan 48674.
Fundam Appl Toxicol. 1989 Jan;12(1):172-88. doi: 10.1016/0272-0590(89)90073-0.
The question as to whether or not any or all of the phenoxy herbicides are carcinogenic to humans continues to be evaluated. We review the evidence available from the retrospective cohort and case-control epidemiology studies. Graphs of the individual probability densities for the odds ratios from the eight case-control studies of soft-tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin's disease, or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma demonstrate gross inconsistencies which are not likely to be attributable to chance. Early studies, conducted in Sweden, had indicated strong associations, but subsequent work from New Zealand and the United States has failed to substantiate those findings. The reasons for the discordant results may relate more to methodologic problems in the earlier studies than to qualitative or quantitative differences in the exposures of the underlying populations. The retrospective cohort studies offer the advantage of having focused on occupational groups believed to have had the highest exposures, although they have been criticized as being individually too small to assess the risks of the rarer forms of cancer. Consideration of the combined cohort studies of workers exposed to the phenoxy herbicides per se provides little or no evidence of carcinogenicity. Thus, the total weight of evidence currently available does not support a conclusion that the phenoxy herbicides present a carcinogenic hazard to humans.
关于任何一种或所有苯氧基除草剂是否对人类致癌的问题仍在持续评估中。我们回顾了回顾性队列研究和病例对照流行病学研究中可得的证据。八项关于软组织肉瘤、霍奇金病或非霍奇金淋巴瘤的病例对照研究中优势比的个体概率密度图显示出明显的不一致，这不太可能是偶然因素导致的。瑞典早期进行的研究表明存在强关联，但新西兰和美国随后的研究未能证实这些发现。结果不一致的原因可能更多地与早期研究中的方法学问题有关，而非与基础人群暴露的质或量的差异有关。回顾性队列研究的优势在于聚焦于被认为暴露程度最高的职业群体，尽管它们因个体规模过小而受到批评，无法评估罕见癌症形式的风险。对接触苯氧基除草剂本身的工人的联合队列研究进行考量，几乎没有提供致癌性的证据。因此，目前可得证据的总体权重并不支持苯氧基除草剂对人类具有致癌危害这一结论。
