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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Environmental Health and Exposome
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1490458
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Change, Air Pollution, and Health Inequality: Vulnerability of Marginalized Populations View all 3 articles

Moderate PM10 Exposure Increases Prostate Cancer: A Longitudinal Nationwide Cohort Study (2010-2020)

Provisionally accepted
Mi Jung Rho Mi Jung Rho 1Yong Hyung Park Yong Hyung Park 2*Jihwan Park Jihwan Park 3*
  • 1 College of Health Science, Dankook University, Cheonan-si, Republic of Korea
  • 2 Department of Urology, Seoult St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 3 College of Liveral Arts, Dankook University, Cheonan-si, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Fine dust exposure has been reported to affect patients with prostate cancer, making it crucial to unde rstand how environmental pollutants impact health. This study aimed to determine the risk of prostate cancer in Korea associated with moderate levels of fine dust (PM10) exposure. We analyzed data fro m 20,430 individuals in the National Health Insurance Sharing Service (NHISS) database from 2010 t o 2020, comparing a new prostate cancer group (n=4,071, 19.9%) with a non-prostate cancer group (n =16,359, 80.1%). We matched NHISS data and fine dust data from Air Korea's annual average air qu ality database based on area code. We conducted logistic regression analysis to assess the risk of pros tate cancer. Our findings indicate that even moderate PM10 exposure is a risk factor for developing pr ostate cancer. Additionally, even at low levels of PM2.5, moderate PM10 exposure significantly impact s prostate can cer d ev elopmen t, w ith lif estyle habits po tentially low er ing this r isk (such as low alcohol consumption, not smoking, and more physical activity). These results underscor e the need for stricter environmental standards for PM10 and proactive policies to reduce public health and long-term social costs. Public awareness, including mask use and air quality management, is esse ntial.

    Keywords: particulate matter exposure, prostate cancer, PM10, the National Health Insurance Sharing Service, National cohort study

    Received: 03 Sep 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Rho, Park and Park. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yong Hyung Park, Department of Urology, Seoult St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea
    Jihwan Park, College of Liveral Arts, Dankook University, Cheonan-si, Republic of Korea

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