Environmental Endocrine Disruptors and Breast cancer: new risk factors?

Abstract

Human epidemiological studies and experimental
animal data strongly suggest that xenobiotics with
estrogenic activity may participate to the increasing
incidence of breast cancer, the most frequent cancer all around the word. Several reports have since
15 years reported positive correlations between
blood or peritumoral adipose tissue levels of persistent organic compounds including organochloride
pesticides and breast cancer risk. Moreover fetal or
perinatal exposition to low doses of such endocrine
disruptors induce premalignant or malignant
transformation of adult mammary gland in
rodents. This environmental endocrine disrupter
hypothesis needs however still to be demonstrated.
Further human studies are needed which will
consider the exposition window, the association of
several xenoestrogens, the molecular mechanisms
involved and the possible individual genetic susceptibility in order to identify pertinent biomarkers
and to define acceptable environmental concentration levels for agricultural or industrial chemical
new products to be used.