Formaldehyde and LeukemiA: Epidemiology, Potential Mechanisms and Implications for Risk Assessment

Abstract

Formaldehyde is widely used in the United States and other countries. Occupational and environmental exposures to formaldehyde may be associated with an increased risk of leukemia in exposed individuals. However, risk assessment of formaldehyde and leukemia has been challenging due to inconsistencies in human and animal studies and the lack of a known mechanism for leukemia induction. At the 39th Annual Environmental Mutagen Society Meeting in October 2008, a symposium was held at which an up-to-date review of the epidemiology of formaldehyde and leukemia, potential mechanisms and the implications for risk assessment were presented. Updated results of two of the three largest industrial cohort studies of formaldehyde-exposed workers have shown positive associations with leukemia, particularly myeloid leukemia, and a recent meta-analysis of studies to date supports this association.

Recent mechanistic studies have shown the formation of formaldehyde-induced DNA adducts and characterized the essential DNA repair pathways that mitigate formaldehyde toxicity. The implications of the updated findings for the design of future studies to more effectively assess the risk of leukemia arising from formaldehyde exposure were discussed and specific recommendations were made. A toxicogenomic approach in experimental models and human exposure studies, together with the measurement of biomarkers of internal exposure, such as formaldehyde-DNA and protein adducts, should prove fruitful. It was recognized that increased communication among scientists who perform epidemiology, toxicology, biology, and risk assessment could enhance the design of future studies, which could ultimately reduce uncertainty in the risk assessment of formaldehyde and leukemia.

Impact/Purpose

Journal Article

Citation

Zhang, L., L. E. Beane Freeman, J. Nakamura, S. S. Hecht, J. J. VANDENBERG, M. Smith, AND B. R. SONAWANE. Formaldehyde and LeukemiA: Epidemiology, Potential Mechanisms and Implications for Risk Assessment. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 51(3):181-191, (2010).