Dear Colleagues,

The cancer risk associated with exposure to environmental and occupational carcinogens such as asbestos, benzene and radiation, or to lifestyle carcinogens such as cigarette smoking, depends upon the entire history of exposure to the carcinogen, including age at start of exposure and the time-varying intensity of exposure. Although the importance of temporal aspects of exposure and risk has been emphasized for some time, the vast majority of epidemiological studies of cohorts use cumulative exposure as the measure of exposure, even when detailed exposure information is available for each member of the cohort. One reason is that the explicit history of exposure is difficult to incorporate in the traditional statistical models used for analyses of epidemiological data. In contrast, time-dependent parameters associated with time-varying intensities of exposure can be easily accommodated in statistical analyses based on multistage models.

Largely as a result of the focus on case control studies, undue emphasis has been placed on the development of relative risk regression models. Even when cohort data are available, epidemiological studies have focused on the estimation of relative risk when the more appropriate targets of estimation are the hazard functions for varying levels of exposure. Once the hazard functions are estimated, various measures of risk, such as relative risk and excess risk, can be easily estimated. Methods of analyses based on multistage models provide one approach to estimating hazard functions for any general time-varying exposure history.

Finally, multistage models for carcinogenesis provide a unified framework for analyses of data from multiple sources in cancer epidemiology.

The aim of this SI is extending the current knowledge of environmental and occupational cancer etiology and by providing the evidence base for carcinogen evaluation and cancer prevention. The SI will focus on three priority areas: (i) environmental and occupational exposures, (epi)genetic changes, and cancer risk throughout the life course, (ii) the functional role of genetic and epigenetic changes in carcinogenesis, and (iii) studies on specific exposure and cancer.

Furthermore, it is relevant to study the epidemiology of probable/possible carcinogens in order to clarify the real effects on health.

Dr. Caterina Ledda
Guest Editor

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• exposure
• risk assessment
• risk management
• occupational medicine
• environmental medicine
• epidemiology
• cancer