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Air pollution and cancer

Emissions from motor vehicles, industrial processes, power generation, the household combustion of solid fuel, and other sources pollute the ambient air across the globe. The precise chemical and physical features of ambient air pollution, which comprises a myriad of individual chemical constituents, vary around the world due to differences in the sources of pollution, climate, and meteorology, but the mixtures of ambient air pollution invariably contain specific chemicals known to be carcinogenic to humans. Recent estimates suggest that the disease burden due to air pollution is substantial. Exposure to ambient fine particles was recently estimated to have contributed 3.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2010, due largely to cardiovascular disease, and 223 000 deaths from lung cancer. More than half of the lung cancer deaths attributable to ambient fine particles were projected to have been in China and other East Asian countries. The IARC Monographs Programme convened a multidisciplinary Advisory Group that included epidemiologists, toxicologists, atmospheric scientists, cancer biologists, and regulators to make recommendations for the development of a series of Monographs on air pollution. This book provides the updated state-of-the-art overviews from this Advisory Group on topics related to exposure characterization, atmospheric and engineering sciences, epidemiological studies on cancer, results of pertinent cancer bioassays, and data elucidating potential mechanisms of carcinogenicity of compounds related to air pollution. See also: http://www.iarc.fr/en/publications/books/sp161/index.php

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