27 Oct Mt. Sinai Study Finds PFAS Chemicals May Be Associated with Increased Risk of Thyroid Cancer
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Van Gerwen
Maaike van Gerwen, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery
Institute for Translational Epidemiolog
Director of Research
Department of Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Where are these PFAS chemicals found?
Response: Over the past decades, we have seen an increasing trend in thyroid cancer which cannot be fully explained by increased use of medical imaging (including ultrasound). Certain environmental exposure are known to impact on the thyroid gland, including thyroid dysfunction or development of cancer. PFAS are chemicals that are known to disrupt the function of endocrine organs, such as the thyroid gland. We therefore hypothesized that PFAS exposure may be one of the potential risk factors for thyroid cancer and thus one of the potential reason for the increasing thyroid cancer incidence.
PFAS chemicals are widespread in the environment and have been found in the soil, water, and air. PFAS are also widely used in a variety of consumer products including non-stick cookware, stain resisting fabric, firefighting foams, but are also found in drinking water and food. This leads to an almost universal exposure of the general population.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: Our main study finding is that we are the first study to find an association between exposure to certain PFAS (PFOS) and the risk of thyroid cancer diagnosis. When we did a subgroup analysis of patients who were diagnosed at least one year after sampling PFAS, we found the same positive association between PFOS exposure and risk of thyroid cancer. Our study supports the hypothesis that PFAS exposure may be associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer.
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: We think that is important to raise the general awareness of the potential negative health impacts of PFAS chemicals. Our study results confirm that current actions by the EPA to monitor and set limits for PFAS in drinking water are important but may need to be expanded to removing PFAS from potential exposure sources, including drinking water and consumer products.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a results of this study?
Response: Future studies are needed to understand the potential mechanism how PFAS may cause thyroid cancer. It is also important to repeat this study including a larger sample to confirm these results. One of other next steps is to investigate if PFAS exposure is associated with a more aggressive type of thyroid cancer or a higher likelihood to have thyroid cancer return or develop a second cancer.
We want to thank our collaborators as well as our BioMe study participants.
Disclosures :
Manish Arora is co-founder of Linus Biotechnology and is owner of a license agreement with NIES (Japan). He also received honoraria and travel compensation for lectures for the Bio-Echo and Brin foundations. Dr. Arora has 22 patents at various stages.
Citation:
Alsen M, Leung AM, van Gerwen M. Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Community Water Systems (CWS) and the Risk of Thyroid Cancer: An Ecological Study. Toxics. 2023 Sep 16;11(9):786. doi: 10.3390/toxics11090786. PMID: 37755796; PMCID: PMC10537801.
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