Carcinogens, chemical environmental

WHO/IPCS. 1985h. Guide to short-term tests for detecting mutagenic and carcinogenic chemicals. Environmental Health Criteria 51. Geneva WHO. http / www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc051.htm... 

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are widespread environmental contaminants and one of the most potent classes of carcinogenic chemicals. They are byproducts of combustion, and significant levels are produced in automobile exhaust, refuse burning, smoke stack effluents, and tobacco smoke. It is strongly suspected that PAH may play an important role in human cancer. 

Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds, Part 1, Chemical Environmental and Experimental Data International Agency for Research on Cancer Monographs on the Evaluation of the Carcinogenic Risks to Humans 32 IARC Lyon, France, 1983. 

International Agency for Research on Cancer. lARC monographs on the evaluation of the carcinogenic risks to humans, vol. 32 polycyclic aromatic compounds, part 1, chemical environmental and experimental data. Lyon lARC 1983. 

World Health Organization (WHO), Environmental Health Criteria 51, Guide to Short-Term Tests for Detecting Mutagenic and Carcinogenic Chemicals, World Health Organization, Geneva, 1985 b. 

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has concluded that 80 percent of all cancer is attributable to environmental influences (including smoking and exposure to carcinogenic chemicals). 

For all these cancers, incidence rates are highest in the industrially developed areas of the world, where people are exposed to higher levels of carcinogenic chemicals. In each case, those living in areas with lower incidences for a particular cancer demonstrate increased rates when they migrate to areas with higher incidences, further demonstrating the cancer causative effects of environmental and occupational exposures to toxic chemicals. 

Mehlman MA. 1996. Dangerous and cancer-causing properties of products and chemicals in the oil refining and petrochemical industry XI. Carcinogenicity and environmental hazards of crude oil, gasoline, and its components. J Clean Technol, Environ Toxicol, and Occup Med 5(2)115-130. 

Reverting to the NIH/EPA Chemical Information System (CIS), this has recently added a new database called CESARS (Chemical Evaluation Search and Retrieval System) which includes physical and chemical properties, toxicity, carcinogenicity, and environmental fate (degradation). 

Most of the studies on the health effect of PAHs have been carried out on laboratory animals than on humans due to the ethical implications. Therefore there exist practically no published studies on health effects in human following oral exposure to PAHs. In most cases humans are occasionally exposed to a mixture of PAHs through inhalation and dermal exposure. Other drawback associated with these data is that all the reports on human exposure to PAHs have the same subjects exposed to other potentially carcinogenic chemicals in occupational and environmental situations. Information on health effect of these mixtures is thus confined to their carcinogenic potentials derived from a number of epidemiological studies. 

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons refer to a group of over 200 chemicals (made up of varying numbers of carbon and hydrogen atoms connected in ring-like forms) that have been cited as carcinogenic and environmentally hazardous substances. They result predominantly from the incomplete combustion of organic compounds and materials (http //envirocancer.cornell.edu) [41,42]. Naphthalene is the most volatile member of this class of pollutants and is typically considered as a model compound of these molecules. 

F. J. de Serres, Perspective on the mutagenicity of chemical carcinogens, in Environmental Mutagens Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the European Environmental... 

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