Evaluation and Estimation of Potential Carcinogenic Risks of Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH)

摘要

The evaluation and estimation of the potential risk of human exposures to a hazardous substance requires the analysis of all relevant data to answer two questions: does the agent cause the effect and what is the relationship between dose (exposure) and incidence of the effect in humans. For polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), carcinogenicity is the effect of concern. Three types of evidence can be used to evaluate the likelihood that a PAH is carcinogenic to humans. They are epidemiologic evidence, experimental evidence derived from long-term animal bioassays, supportive or suggestive evidence from short-term tests, metabolism, pharmacokinetics and structure-activity correlations. Mathematical modeling can be used to estimate the potential human risks. The approaches and the problems associated with these approaches for estimating cancer risk to humans are addressed with special emphasis on problems related to PAH.