Cancer Risk Assessment Using Multimedia and Multiroute Human Exposure of Dioxin in Korea. D. C. Shin, J. Y. Yang, S. E. Park, and Y. D. Yu, The Institute of Environmental Research, Yonsei Univ., College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
The existence of dioxin-like compounds in food is thought to be the primary source of most background environmental dioxin exposure in the general population (Startin, 1994). This study was conducted to calculate the lifetime excess cancer risk using multimedia and multiroute human exposure of dioxin-like compounds in Korea.
We determined daily dioxin intake using multipathway exposure factors (Mackone and Ryan, 1986) and dioxin concentration in food, soil, and ambient air in Korea. This study considered 5 exposure pathways; ingestion of foods, inhalation, ingestion of soil, dermal uptake of soil, and ingestion of water. Calculations of dioxin daily intake was made with assumptions that the average adult body weight was 66kg(MHW-Korea, 1997), and an average lifespan was 70 years. The excess cancer risk was estimated using the unit cancer risk for dioxin, 1<Title>E-4(pg/kg/day)^(-1), recommended by the US EPA(1994).
The daily dioxin intake was estimated at 67.1 TEQ pg/day by food ingestion, 1.1 TEQ pg/day by inhalation, 0.4 TEQ/day by soil ingestion, 1.8 TEQ pg/day by dermal uptake of soil, and a negligible amount by water ingestion. The daily dioxin intake to body weight was estimated as 1.07 pg/kg/day. This value was found to be lower than values reported in the USA, Germany, England, and Canada. The lifetime excess cancer risk of dioxin was estimated to be 107 per million persons. In the Korean population of 46.86 million, the 5,014 excess cancers over a lifetime(70 years) or about 72 cases/year might be directly linked to dioxin exposure throughout environmental multimedia and multipathway. Since these calculations are based on conservative approaches to setting an upper limit, "true" risk is not likely to exceed this value.
Go to . . .
1999 SRA Table of Contents
1999 SRA Author Index
Main Abstracts Menu Page
RiskWorld Home Page