- Hosgood, H Dean;
- Boffetta, Paolo;
- Greenland, Sander;
- Lee, Yuan-Chin Amy;
- McLaughlin, John;
- Seow, Adeline;
- Duell, Eric J;
- Andrew, Angeline S;
- Zaridze, David;
- Szeszenia-Dabrowska, Neonila;
- Rudnai, Peter;
- Lissowska, Jolanta;
- Fabiánová, Eleonóra;
- Mates, Dana;
- Bencko, Vladimir;
- Foretova, Lenka;
- Janout, Vladimir;
- Morgenstern, Hal;
- Rothman, Nathaniel;
- Hung, Rayjean J;
- Brennan, Paul;
- Lan, Qing
Background
Domestic fuel combustion from cooking and heating is an important public health issue because roughly 3 billion people are exposed worldwide. Recently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified indoor emissions from household coal combustion as a human carcinogen (group 1) and from biomass fuel (primarily wood) as a probable human carcinogen (group 2A).Objectives
We pooled seven studies from the International Lung Cancer Consortium (5,105 cases and 6,535 controls) to provide further epidemiological evaluation of the association between in-home solid-fuel use, particularly wood, and lung cancer risk.Methods
Using questionnaire data, we classified subjects as predominant solid-fuel users (e.g., coal, wood) or nonsolid-fuel users (e.g., oil, gas, electricity). Unconditional logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and to compute 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusting for age, sex, education, smoking status, race/ethnicity, and study center.Results
Compared with nonsolid-fuel users, predominant coal users (OR = 1.64; 95% CI, 1.49-1.81), particularly coal users in Asia (OR = 4.93; 95% CI, 3.73-6.52), and predominant wood users in North American and European countries (OR = 1.21; 95% CI, 1.06-1.38) experienced higher risk of lung cancer. The results were similar in never-smoking women and other subgroups.Conclusions
Our results are consistent with previous observations pertaining to in-home coal use and lung cancer risk, support the hypothesis of a carcinogenic potential of in-home wood use, and point to the need for more detailed study of factors affecting these associations.