Drinking Water Arsenic Contamination, Skin Lesions, and Malignancies: A Systematic Review of the Global Evidence.

ABSTRACT: Skin lesions and cancer are known manifestations of chronic exposure to arsenic contaminated drinking water. Epidemiologic data primarily comes from regions with exposures 1-2 orders of magnitude above the current World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines of 10 μg/L. Emerging evidence indicates that more common exposures may also be related to both noncancerous and cancerous changes to the skin. In this review, we focus on the body of epidemiologic literature that encompasses exposures within the WHO guidelines, excluding studies that lacked individual exposure estimates and case reports. For skin lesions and skin cancers, 15 and 10 studies were identified that met our criteria, respectively. For skin lesions, a consistent dose-response relationship with water arsenic has been observed, w

SUBMITTER: Karagas MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4522704 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature