Air Pollution Elevates Breast Cancer Risk in Women

Air pollution, which has already been linked to a range of health problems, may put women at risk of for another deadly disease.

A ground breaking new study suggests pollution from traffic is associated with the risk of breast cancer.

The study has been conducted by researchers from The Research Institute of the MUHC (RI MUHC; Dr. Mark Goldberg), McGill University (Drs. Goldberg, Dan Crouse and Nancy Ross), and Universiti de Montrial (Dr. France Labrhche).

"We've been watching breast cancer rates go up for some time. Nobody really knows why, and only about one third of cases are attributable to known risk factors. Since no-one had studied the connection between air pollution and breast cancer using detailed air pollution maps, we decided to investigate it," says study co-author Dr. Mark Goldberg, a researcher at The RI MUHC.

Dr. Goldberg and his colleagues approached the problem by combining data from several studies.

First, they used the results of their 2005-2006 study to create two air pollution "maps" showing levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a by-product of vehicular traffic, in different parts of Montreal in 1996 and 10 years earlier in 1986.