This pilot study provides some of the first estimates of PFAS exposure among prostate cancer patients in serum and tap water, showing moderate correlations between tap water and serum concentrations of specific PFAS analytes.
It is suggested that higher plasma PFAS concentrations, particularly HFPO-DA, may be associated with more advanced TNM stage in colorectal cancer and warrant confirmation in larger prospective studies.
Ning Kang, Yang Zhao, Zhi Huang et al.· Frontiers in Toxicology· 1 citation
Mixture exposure showed a significant positive association with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk, and these substances disrupt pulmonary homeostasis through concurrent molecular activation and lipid-metabolic disturbance, evidenced by triglyceride-glucose index mediation.
Yansong Hu, Huanyu Cui, Yakun Wang et al.· BMC Pulmonary Medicine· 0 citations
The findings suggest that exposure to low levels of some alternative and precursor PFAS may be widespread in Canada and reinforce the role of pregnancy and breastfeeding as excretion pathways for legacy PFAS and support previous investigations demonstrating that exposure to some PFAS may be lower amongst financially disadvantaged populations.
Michael M. Borghese, Rebecca Lelievre, Sara Packull-McCormick et al.· Environmental Health· 0 citations
Exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) has been associated with hypertension in some populations, but the associations among young men and underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We measured 16 plasma PFAS and assessed obesity and hypertension (blood pressure ≥130/80 mmHg) among 1283 Chinese young men. In total, 449 (35.0%) men had hypertension. Plasma 6:2 fluorotelomer phosphate diester (6:2 diPAP) concentrations were positively associated with hypertension in a linear dose–response manner (OR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.01–1.16 per 2.7-fold increase), with an OR of 1.43 (1.07–1.90) for the highest versus lowest exposure tertile. Individual obesity indicators (body mass index [BMI], waist circumference, and waist-to-height ratio [WHtR]) explained 8.6%–19.2% of the association between 6:2 diPAP and hypertension. A machine learning-derived three-level obesity severity spectrum integrating WHtR and BMI (normal, elevated central adiposity alone, and elevated central adiposity with overweight) explained 36.9% of the association. In summary, exposure to 6:2 diPAP was associated with higher odds of hypertension among young men, partly mediated by obesity, with an integrated body shape pattern combining central and general adiposity showing the largest mediating effect.
Lili Huang, Na Ji, Huiling Shao et al.· Environment & Health· 0 citations
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are environmental contaminants associated with higher serum lipids, although primarily in cross-sectional studies, limiting causal inference. We aim to determine whether there is a causal relationship between PFAS and serum lipid levels by emulating a target trial of a hypothetical PFAS-reduction intervention using observational data. The target trial would enroll adults aged ≥20 years without prior cardiovascular, kidney, or liver disease, diabetes, or use of related medications. Participants would be randomly assigned to either PFAS-reduction counseling or no counseling, with adherence evaluated after 10 years, and then followed up after 10 years to assess effects on serum lipids. To emulate the target trial, we will use data from the Copenhagen City Heart Study on three successive clinical visits: baseline, follow-up, and outcome assessment visit, 10 years apart. Eligible participants meet the target trial criteria, have available blood samples for PFAS quantification at follow-up, and information on serum lipids at the outcome assessment. Intervention strategies will be evaluated based on observed reductions in PFAS concentrations between baseline and follow-up visit. Serum lipids are assessed at the outcome assessment visit. The emulation assumes exchangeability by adjusting for baseline and time-varying confounders using G-computation. This protocol explores applying the target trial emulation framework to improve causal inference in environmental epidemiology.
Georges Khoury, L. Deen, Lars Christian Lund et al.· Toxics· 0 citations
Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent environmental contaminants with endocrine-disrupting and carcinogenic potential. However, their bioaccumulation profiles and clinical relevance in human breast cancer remain largely unexplored.
In this preliminary study we quantified the absolute concentrations of 33 PFAS congeners (ng/g) in paired tumour and adjacent non-tumorous tissues from 11 breast cancer patients (
n
= 11) using LC–MS/MS to evaluate their tissue distribution and clinical correlations.
The detection rates for six compounds (HFPOTA, PFOA, PFNA, PFUnDA, PFOS, and 6:2Cl-PFESA) were greater than 40%. In paired samples, several congeners showed higher concentrations in tumour than in adjacent non-tumorous tissue; using a two-sided exact Wilcoxon signed-rank test with Hodges–Lehmann effect sizes, tumour enrichment remained significant after Benjamini–Hochberg correction for HFPOTA (
q
= 0.041), PFNA (
q
= 0.047) and PFUnDA (
q
= 0.047). HFPOTA showed by far the highest tissue burden (median 654 ng/g). Clinically, PFOS concentrations were descriptively higher in Luminal B than in Luminal A tumours and were positively correlated with the proliferation marker Ki-67; a high 6:2Cl-PFESA–PR rank correlation was observed in four samples but was not statistically significant on the raw p-value (p ≈ 0.051) and is exploratory. Bioinformatic analyses indicated that computationally predicted shared target genes of PFAS and breast cancer are enriched in the PPAR signaling pathway, lipid metabolism, and steroid hormone biosynthesis.
Collectively, PFAS bioaccumulation was associated with breast cancer clinicopathological characteristics. Because the target genes are predicted rather than experimentally validated and the cohort is small (
n
= 11), these are exploratory, hypothesis-generating findings that require validation in larger cohorts. This study underscores the need to reassess the biosafety of novel PFAS alternatives and provides new insights into the environmental etiology of breast cancer.
Bei Sun, Zhanhua Gao, Xiyue Liu et al.· Frontiers in Public Health· 0 citations