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Letter

Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment

1
Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, California State University, Chico, CA 95929, USA
2
Environmental Sciences and Engineering, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2007, 4(4), 340-341; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010
Published: 31 December 2007
In our previous paper, “Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment”, 2006, 3(4), 316–322, there were several errors in the table of data used in the analysis. In particular:
  • The paper of Bates et al. [1] incorrectly listed units of concentrations. They reported in units of milligrams rather than micrograms (see the last entries in Table 3 of their paper).
  • In the paper by Chiou et al. [2] we introduced an error ourselves. We listed the arsenic exposure level as ≤ 50; 50–70; 71+. These should be ≤ 50; 50–700; 710+.
With these corrections, the pooled estimate of slopes from the seven studies using the fixed effects model becomes was 0.001 (95% CI: 0.001, 0.002), with the unit of lnRR per unit increase of exposure (exposure is in μg/L as in our original paper). The chi-square statistic was quite large (i.e. Q = 497.752 on 6 degrees of freedom, p= 0.00), which rejects the null hypothesis of homogeneity and means there was evidence of heterogeneity. Using the random-effect model, and including only the five studies identified in the original paper as most relevant (excluding Bates et al [1] and Kurttio et al [3]), the pooled estimate of the slopes from the five studies was found to be 0.002 (exposure also in units of per μg/L) (95% CI: −0.001, 0.006).
The new result of the meta-analysis still supports the claim that there is a positive dose-response relationship between exposure to arsenic in drinking water and bladder cancer. Table 1 summarizes the revised results of the absolute risk (AR) calculation for bladder cancer associated with a variety of proposed MCLs (maximum contaminant levels) using different estimates from the meta-analysis: the best estimate, the upper-bound and lower-bound estimates of the slope factor. The best (revised) estimate of the slope factor from the meta-analysis is 1.64 × 10−5 (with unit of probability per μg/kg/day), with the upper bound of 5.38 × 10−5. These slope factors from the meta-analysis are lower than the ones from the EPA (1.5 × 10−3) and NRC (8.85 × 10−4).
If readers would like the revised figures and tables from the paper, please contact the corresponding author, at the above-referenced address.
Table 1:. Risk of bladder cancer at different MCLs
Table 1:. Risk of bladder cancer at different MCLs
MCL (ppb)AR (u_95)AR (Mean)AR (L_95)
0000
1−1.80E-071.08E-06−1.80E-07
3−5.39E-073.27E-06−5.39E-07
5−8.98E-075.48E-06−8.98E-07
10−1.79E-061.11E-05−1.79E-06
20−3.56E-062.29E-05−3.56E-06
50−8.78E-066.30E-05−8.78E-06

References

  1. Bates, MN; Rey, OA; Biggs, ML; Hopenhayn, C; Moore, LE; Kalman, D; Steinmaus, C; Smith, AH. Case-control study of bladder cancer and exposure to arsenic in Argentina. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2004, 159(4), 381–389. [Google Scholar]
  2. Chiou, H-Y; Chiou, S-T; Hsu, Y-H; Chou, Y-L; Tseng, C-H; Wei, M-L; Chen, C-J. Incidence of transitional cell carcinoma and arsenic in drinking water: A follow-up study of 8,102 residents in an arseniasis-endemic area in Northeastern Taiwan. American Journal of Epidemiology 2001, 153(5), 411–418. [Google Scholar]
  3. Kurttio, P; Pukkala, E; Kahelin, H; Auvinen, A; Pekkanen, J. Arsenic concentrations in well water and risk of bladder and kidney cancer in Finland. Environ. Health Perspectives 1999, 107(9), 705–710. [Google Scholar]

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MDPI and ACS Style

Chu, H.-A.; Crawford-Brown, D. Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2007, 4, 340-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010

AMA Style

Chu H-A, Crawford-Brown D. Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2007; 4(4):340-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010

Chicago/Turabian Style

Chu, Huei-An, and Douglas Crawford-Brown. 2007. "Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water and Bladder Cancer: A Meta-Analysis for Dose-Response Assessment" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 4, no. 4: 340-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph200704040010

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