Kyung-Ho Park, Ji-Hyun Kim, Hong-Sun Yoon, In-Hwa Kim, In-Mok Choi, Je-Young Lee, Mi-Kyeong Ju

Department of Family Medicine, BHS Hanseo Hospital, Busan, Korea


Background: There have been growing interests in harmful effects of dust particles on human health. It has been reported that dust particles negatively affected respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Relationship of dust particles and lung cancer incidence was also investigated. However, there is a lack of studies regarding the relationship between dust particles and cancers except for lung cancer. Therefore, this study aimed to de�termine the relationship of dust particle concentration and cancer mortality in Korea.
Methods: Average concentration of coarse dust particles (particulate matter 10, PM10) of 2008-2014 were ob�tained from AirKorea website and cancer mortality was found in Statistics Korea for 2008-2014. Correlation analyses using PM10 and cancer mortality were performed. Age-adjusted death rate (AADR) was used for cor�relation analysis because a number of death and mortality rate do not reflect population and age of death. Regional annual PM10 was matched with AADR of identical area. Correlation between two variables was pre�sented in scatter plots and Pearson’s correlation analysis was performed.
Results: PM10 concentration was positively correlated with AADR of malignant neoplasm, lung cancer, stomach cancer, colon cancer, uterus cancer, and leukemia. PM10 concentration was significantly correlated with AADR of malignant neoplasm (r=0.247, P=0.009), lung cancer (r=0.277, P=0.003), stomach cancer (r=0.434, P=0.000), colon cancer (r=0.377, P=0.000), and uterus cancer (r=0.226, P=0.017). Conclusion: This study suggested that cancer patients or high-risk group for cancer should pay attention to PM10 concentration. Large-scale studies should investigate the relationship of PM10 concentration and cancer incidence including cancer mortality to extend understanding of this cross-section study.
Korean J Health Promot 2016;16(4):215-222

Keywords: Airborne particulate matter, Concentration, Cancer, Mortality, Correlation study