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Phthalates and risk of endometriosis
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Phthalates and risk of endometriosis

Kristen Upson, Sheela Sathyanarayana, Anneclaire J. De Roos, Mary Lou Thompson, Delia Scholes, Russell Dills and Victoria L. Holt
Environmental research, v 126, pp 91-97
01 Oct 2013
PMID: 23890968
url
https://europepmc.org/articles/pmc3905445View
Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified) Open

Abstract

Environmental Sciences Environmental Sciences & Ecology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Public, Environmental & Occupational Health Science & Technology
Background: Phthalates are ubiquitous environmental chemicals with endocrine disruptive properties. The impact of these chemicals on endocrine-related disease in reproductive-age women is not well understood. Objective: To investigate the relationship between urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations and the risk of a hormonally-driven disease, endometriosis, in reproductive-age women. Methods: We used data from a population-based case-control study of endometriosis, conducted among female enrollees of a large healthcare system in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. We measured urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations on incident, surgically-confirmed cases (n=92) diagnosed between 1996 and 2001 and population-based controls (n=195). Odds ratios (OR), and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using unconditional logistic regression, adjusting for urinary creatinine concentrations, age, and reference year. Results: The majority of women in our study had detectable concentrations of phthalate metabolites. We observed a strong inverse association between urinary mono-(2-ethyl-5-hexyl) phthalate (MEHP) concentration and endometriosis risk, particularly when comparing the fourth and first MEHP quartiles (aOR 0.3, 95% CI: 0.1-0.7). Our data suggested an inverse association between endometriosis and urinary concentrations of other di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) metabolites (mono-(2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate (MEHHP), mono-(2-ethyl-5-oxohexyl) phthalate (MEOHP)) and Sigma DEHP, however, the confidence intervals include the null. Our data also suggested increased endometriosis risk with greater urinary concentrations of mono-benzyl phthalate (MBzP) and mono-ethyl phthalate (MEP), although the associations were not statistically significant. Conclusions: Exposure to select phthalates is ubiquitous among female enrollees of a large healthcare system in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The findings from our study suggest that phthalates may alter the risk of a hormonally-mediated disease among reproductive-age women. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Environmental Sciences
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
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