The association between heavy metal soil pollution and stomach cancer: a case study in Hangzhou City, China

Stomach cancer (SC) is a severe health burden, with nearly half of the world’s cases found in China. Noticeably, the emissions of heavy metals into the environment have increased alongside rapid urbanization and industrialization in China. However, as regards carcinogenic associations, the relations...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental geochemistry and health 2018-12, Vol.40 (6), p.2481-2490
Main Authors: Fei, Xufeng, Lou, Zhaohan, Christakos, George, Ren, Zhouqiao, Liu, Qingmin, Lv, Xiaonan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cadmium
Cancer
Carcinogens
Case studies
Clusters
Distribution
Earth and Environmental Science
Environment
Environmental Chemistry
Environmental Health
Gastric cancer
Geochemistry
Heavy metals
Incidence
Industrialization
Metals
Original Paper
Pollutants
Pollution
Public Health
Soil
Soil contamination
Soil pollution
Soil Science & Conservation
Spatial distribution
Stomach
Terrestrial Pollution
Urbanization
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Summary:Stomach cancer (SC) is a severe health burden, with nearly half of the world’s cases found in China. Noticeably, the emissions of heavy metals into the environment have increased alongside rapid urbanization and industrialization in China. However, as regards carcinogenic associations, the relationship between heavy metals and SC is yet unclear. Based on 9378 newly diagnosed SC cases in Hangzhou City from 2009 to 2012, this work is concerned with the quantitative characterization of the spatial distribution pattern of SC incidence and its geographical association with soil heavy metals by means of a novel geographical model. The results show that (a) Cd is one of the severe soil pollutants in Hangzhou; (b) higher SC incidence clusters are in central Hangzhou, whereas lower clusters are found in the northeast and southwest with a male to female incidence ratio about 2.2:1; (c) although when considered separately, the heavy metals in this work do not have a considerable impact on the distribution of SC incidence in Hangzhou City, nevertheless, the joint effects of multiple heavy metals have significant impacts on SC risk. The present work calls for a rigorous quantitative assessment of the integrated heavy metal soil pollution and its effects on SC incidence.
ISSN:0269-4042
1573-2983
DOI:10.1007/s10653-018-0113-0