Occupational and Environmental Health

Twenty years of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) production concentrated in the region of Eastern Slovakia leaves many unanswered questions about the impact of environmental contamination on the health status of the exposed population. Almost three times higher levels of serum PCBs in the target district of Michalovce (4207.9 ng/g of fat, sum of nine PCB congeners: 28, 52, 101, 138, 153, 180, 118, 156, 170) in comparison to the control district of Stropkov (1208.8 ng/g of fat, sum of the same nine PCB congeners) are the evidence that the PCBs in the environment remain at high levels in the exposed population 15 years after cessation of their production.

We propose an analytical addition to our previous case-control study of PCB exposure and cancer risk in Eastern Slovakia. Using primary care physicians in the Michalovce district as our sampling frame, we propose to contact all primary care physicians to identify and refer to us the cancer cases diagnosed during the last year in the Michalovce district. We will administer a standardized questionnaire and obtain blood samples from 50 recruited subjects. Levels of serum PCB and information from questionnaires will be compared to control subjects from a sample we collected during recently completed fieldwork after exclusion of prevalent cancer cases.