Identification of human carcinogens

Vainio, H., Wilboum, J.D., Sasco, A.J., Partensky, C., Gaudin. N., Heseltine, E. Eragne, I. (1995) Identification of human carcinogenic risk in lARC Monographs. Bull. Cancer, 82, 339-348 (in French)... 

Evidence of the induction of cancer in humans obviously plays an important role in the identification of human carcinogens. Three types of epidemiological studies contribute to an assessment of carcinogenicity in humans cohort studies, case-control studies and correlation (or ecological) studies. Case reports of cancer in humans may also be reviewed. 

The identification of the carcinogenic potential of substances often requires the consideration of a large set of data. An important part of the assessment of the available data concerns the evaluation of the mode of action underlying the carcinogenic activity, as this information also allows an evaluation of possible human relevance, existence of thresholds, and comparability with stmcturaUy... 

Risk assessment of carcinogens is a two-step process involving first, a qualitative assessment of the data from the hazard identification stage (see above) and second, a quantitation of the risk for definite or probable human carcinogens. 

Duffus JH. 1996. Epidemiology and the identification of metals as human carcinogens. Sci Prog 79(4) 311-326. 

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