2024/02/01 by Richard V. Remigio, Gabriella Andreotti, Dale P. Sandler +8 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Pesticide and Herbicide Environmental Studies #Pesticide Exposure and Toxicity #Pesticide Residue Analysis and Safety
paper · doi:10.1289/ehp13684
openalex publication_date 2024/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
BACKGROUND: Atrazine is a common agricultural herbicide in the United States. Few epidemiologic studies have evaluated cancer risks. Previous analyses within the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) have found some evidence of associations with cancer at some sites. OBJECTIVE: We updated exposure information, incident cases, and follow-up time to assess the associations between atrazine use and cancer at specific sites in the AHS. METHODS: Information about lifetime pesticide use was reported at enrollment (1993-1997) and follow-up (1999-2005). Among 53,562 pesticide applicators in North Carolina and Iowa, we identified 8,915 incident cases through cancer registry linkages through 2014 (North Carolina)/2017 (Iowa). We used Poisson regression to evaluate the association between ever/never and intensity-weighted lifetime days of atrazine use and incident cancer risk controlling for several confounders. We also evaluated lagged exposures and age-stratified risk. RESULTS: ) cancers. DISCUSSION: We observed suggestive associations with some malignancies in overall, age-specific, and lagged analyses. Associations with aggressive prostate cancer and NHL were apparent among those diagnosed at younger ages and with cancers of the pharynx and kidney, and soft tissue sarcomas were observed in lagged analyses. Further work is needed to confirm these observed associations and elucidate potential underlying mechanisms. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP13684.