Home Medicine Fine particulate matter exposure and cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies
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Fine particulate matter exposure and cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

  • Yuting Feng , Jiaoyuan Li , Yi Wang , Tongxin Yin , Qiankun Wang and Liming Cheng EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: April 22, 2025
Reviews on Environmental Health
From the journal Reviews on Environmental Health Volume 40 Issue 4

Abstract

Studies examining the relationship between fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure and cancer risk is inconclusive, with an evident scarcity of comprehensive data on the overall cancer risk. Given the emergence of new evidence, updated meta-analyses is essential. A search was performed on multiple databases including PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library up to Jan 2025. Hazard ratios (HRs), relative risks (RRs), or incidence rate ratios (IRRs) with their 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were extracted and pooled. Moreover, a comprehensive and detailed quality assessment of the included studies was conducted to validate the plausibility of the findings. Overall, 57 original studies were included, covering 36 cancer categories and including overall cancer and malignancies specific to particular anatomical sites. For each increase of 10 μg per cubic meter in PM2.5 concentration, there was an observed pooled HR of 1.07 for overall cancer (95 %CI:1.02–1.13). In the case of site-specific cancers, the pooled HRs were 1.11 (95 %CI:1.07–1.15), 1.06 (95 %CI:1.02–1.11), 1.17 (95 %CI:1.07–1.28), and 1.14 (95 %CI:1.03–1.26) for lung, breast, liver and esophageal cancers, respectively. Furthermore, PM2.5 exposure may potentially correlate with the risk of cancers at other anatomical locations including upper aerodigestive tract, oral cavity, kidney, skin, as well as digestive organs. In light of available evidence, it is inferred that PM2.5 exposure could potentially raise overall cancer risk with moderate certainty. As for site-specific malignancies, there is very low certainty evidence for lung cancer, low certainty evidence for breast cancer, and moderate certainty evidence for both liver and esophageal cancers.

Keywords: PM2.5; particulate matter; air pollution; cancer; risk
Corresponding author: Liming Cheng, MD, PhD, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, P.R. China, E-mail:
Yuting Feng and Jiaoyuan Li contributed equally to this work.

Funding source: National Natural Science Foundation of China

Award Identifier / Grant number: 81903394

Award Identifier / Grant number: 82272418

  1. Research ethics: Not applicable.

  2. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  3. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission. YF: Writing – review and editing, Writing – original draft, Validation, Investigation, Formal analysis, Software, visualization. JL: Conceptualization, methodology, supervision, funding acquisition. LC: Conceptualization, methodology, supervision, funding acquisition, project administration. YW: validation, investigation. TY: validation. QW: validation.

  4. Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.

  5. Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.

  6. Research funding: The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82272418 and Grant No.81903394).

  7. Data availability: Not applicable.

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2024-0171).

Received: 2024-11-22
Accepted: 2025-03-04
Published Online: 2025-04-22
Published in Print: 2025-12-17

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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  2. Editorials
  3. A changing of the guard at Reviews on Environmental Health
  4. Rachel Carson and Theo Colborn: two pioneering women of science opposing an epoch of toxic entanglement
  5. Reviews
  6. Impacts of PM2.5 on stillbirth and the potential mechanism: a narrative review
  7. Radiofrequency radiation-induced gene expression
  8. Prevalence of foodborne pathogens in ready-to-eat foods: systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression
  9. m6A methylation – a new target of metabolic diseases induced by environmental pollutants
  10. Genetic susceptibility to adverse arsenic-related cardiometabolic outcomes: a systematic review
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  12. Fine particulate matter exposure and cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies
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https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2024-0171
Keywords for this article
PM2.5; particulate matter; air pollution; cancer; risk

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorials
  3. A changing of the guard at Reviews on Environmental Health
  4. Rachel Carson and Theo Colborn: two pioneering women of science opposing an epoch of toxic entanglement
  5. Reviews
  6. Impacts of PM2.5 on stillbirth and the potential mechanism: a narrative review
  7. Radiofrequency radiation-induced gene expression
  8. Prevalence of foodborne pathogens in ready-to-eat foods: systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression
  9. m6A methylation – a new target of metabolic diseases induced by environmental pollutants
  10. Genetic susceptibility to adverse arsenic-related cardiometabolic outcomes: a systematic review
  11. Potential effects of MPs and their co-pollutants on human intestinal tract
  12. Fine particulate matter exposure and cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies
  13. Prenatal exposure to bisphenol-A and neurocognitive changes in children aged 2 to 5 years: a systematic review
  14. Exposure to air pollution from coal-fired power plants and impacts on human health: a scoping review
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