Ambient air pollution and urological cancer risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiological evidence
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Updated: Jun 23, 2025

Measuring Carbon Content in Airway Macrophages Exposed to Carbon-Containing Particulate Matters
Published on: July 12, 2024
Jinhui Li1, Zhengyi Deng2, Simon John Christoph Soerensen2,3
1Department of Urology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA, USA. jinhuili@stanford.edu.
Abstract:
Exposure to ambient air pollution has significant adverse health effects; however, whether air pollution is associated with urological cancer is largely unknown. We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis with epidemiological studies, showing that a 5 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 exposure is associated with a 6%, 7%, and 9%, increased risk of overall urological, bladder, and kidney cancer, respectively; and a 10 μg/m3 increase in NO2 is linked to a 3%, 4%, and 4% higher risk of overall urological, bladder, and prostate cancer, respectively. Were these associations to reflect causal relationships, lowering PM2.5 levels to 5.8 μg/m3 could reduce the age-standardized rate of urological cancer by 1.5 ~ 27/100,000 across the 15 countries with the highest PM2.5 level from the top 30 countries with the highest urological cancer burden. Implementing global health policies that can improve air quality could potentially reduce the risk of urologic cancer and alleviate its burden.
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