Widespread use of
pentachlorophenol (PCP) in
schistosomiasis endemic areas had led to ubiquitous exposure to PCP and its residues. Numerous studies had revealed that occupational PCP exposure probably increased risk of
cancers, but whether long-term community-level exposure to PCP generates the similarly carcinogenic effect, seldom studies focused on it. This study was to explore the
cancer risks of long-term community-level PCP exposure from
drinking water in a Chinese general population. Incident (2009-2012)
cancer records were identified by local government national registry. And PCP concentration of raw
drinking water samples in each district was measured by GC-MS/MS analysis for further division of three PCP exposure categories by interquartile range (high vs. medium vs. low). Internal comparisons were performed, and standard rate ratio was calculated to describe the relationship between PCP exposure and
cancer risks by using low-exposure group as the reference group. PCP was detected in all 27 raw
drinking water samples ranging from 11.21 to 684.00 ng/L. A total of 6,750 cases (4,409 male and 2,341 female cases) were identified, and age-standardized rate (world) was 154.95 per 100,000 person-years. The
cancer incidence for the high-exposure group was remarkably high. Internal comparisons indicated that high PCP exposure might be positively associated with high
cancer risks in the community population, particularly for
leukemia (SRR = 5.93, 95 % CI = 5.24-6.71), maligant
lymphoma (SRR = 2.27, 95 % CI = 2.10-2.54), and
esophageal cancer (SRR = 2.42, 95 % CI = 2.35-2.50). Long-term community-level exposure to PCP was probably associated with hemolymph
neoplasm, neurologic
tumors, and
digestive system neoplasm.