2023/10/30 by Jessica M. Madrigal, Rebecca Troisi, Heljä‐Marja Surcel +13 · 31 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Medicine · #Air Quality and Health Impacts #Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols #Cancer #Cohort #Cohort study #Environmental health #Gynecology #Internal medicine #Medicine #Obstetrics #Oncology #Papillary thyroid cancer #Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances research #Physiology #Thyroid #Thyroid cancer
paper · open access · doi:10.1002/ijc.34776
published in International Journal of Cancer 154(6), 979-991 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2023/10/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract Human exposure to per‐ and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) occurs globally through contaminated food, dust, and drinking water. Studies of PFAS and thyroid cancer have been limited. We conducted a nested case‐control study of prediagnostic serum levels of 19 PFAS and papillary thyroid cancer (400 cases, 400 controls) in the Finnish Maternity Cohort (pregnancies 1986‐2010; follow‐up through 2016), individually matched on sample year and age. We used conditional logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for log 2 transformed and categorical exposures, overall and stratified by calendar period, birth cohort, and median age at diagnosis. We adjusted for other PFAS with Spearman correlation rho = 0.3‐0.6. Seven PFAS, including perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), N‐ethyl‐perfluorooctane sulfonamidoacetic acid (EtFOSAA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA), and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) were detected in >50% of women. These PFAS were not associated with risk of thyroid cancer, except for PFHxS, which was inversely associated (OR log 2 = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.70‐0.97). We observed suggestive but imprecise increased risks associated with PFOA, PFOS, and EtFOSAA for those diagnosed at ages <40 years, whereas associations were null or inverse among those diagnosed at 40+ years ( P ‐interaction: .02, .08, .13, respectively). There was little evidence of other interactions. These results show no clear association between PFAS and papillary thyroid cancer risk. Future work would benefit from evaluation of these relationships among those with higher exposure levels and during periods of early development when the thyroid gland may be more susceptible to environmental harms.