Abstract A15: Prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and breast tissue composition in adolescent girls
Authors: Kehm Rebecca D. , Lilge Lothar , Walter E. Jane , Zeinomar Nur , McDonald Jasmine A. , Tehranifar Parisa , Herbstman Julie B. , Miller Rachel L. , Terry Mary Beth 
Published: June 2022

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are common environmental pollutants that result from incomplete combustion of biomass and fossil fuels. PAH have endocrine-disrupting properties and are known animal carcinogens. Evidence from case-control studies suggests an association between PAH and breast cancer risk, but longitudinal research on PAH exposure during critical windows of susceptibility, such as prenatally and in early life, is limited. The purpose of this study was to prospectively examine whether prenatal exposure to PAH is associated with breast tissue composition, an intermediate marker of breast cancer risk, in adolescent girls. We studied 105 adolescent girls in the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) birth cohort, which recruited nonsmoking African American and Dominican American pregnant women living in three low-income neighborhoods in New York City from 1998-2006. Women wore a small backpack holding a personal air monitor for 2 consecutive days during the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, which measured concentrations of pyrene and 8 other carcinogenic PAH (summed and categorized into tertiles for analysis). Girls completed a follow-up clinic visit in adolescence (ages 11.2-19.6 years, median=15.8), at which time breast tissue composition was measured by optical spectroscopy (OS). OS is a novel and noninvasive tool that provides a broad compositional view of the breast by capturing variation in the amount of water, lipid, oxy-hemoglobin, deoxy-hemoglobin, and collagen, as well as overall cellular and connective tissue density. OS measured red and near-infrared light transmission of 7 wavelengths (650-1060 nm) at 4 source-detector distances in each breast quadrant, resulting in 16 overlapping tissue volumes. Principal component analysis was used to reduce spectral data and generate principal component (PC) scores for each participant, which were averaged over both breasts. We used multivariable linear regression to examine associations of prenatal PAH measures (pyrene and Σ8 PAH) with each of the first 4 OS PCs, which explained &gt;99% of the spectral variation in the sample. Models were adjusted for age, ethnicity, body mass index (BMI) at time of OS measurement, age at breast development, and mothers’ prepregnancy BMI. After adjusting for covariates, PC1 scores were significantly lower on average in the highest compared to lowest tertile of prenatal ambient Σ8 PAH (β = -0.42, 95% CI = -0.81 to -0.02, p = 0.04). PC1 covered 91.8% of the spectral variations and represents overall light attenuation from higher scattering due to higher cellularity and connective tissues. PC1 also mapped to multiple chromophores including hemoglobin and collagen. No associations were found between prenatal ambient Σ8 PAH and PCs 2-4, and no associations with OS PCs were found for pyrene. To conclude, we found evidence suggesting that prenatal exposure to PAH is associated with breast tissue composition in adolescent girls.

Citation Format: Rebecca D. Kehm, Lothar Lilge, E. Jane Walter, Nur Zeinomar, Jasmine A. McDonald, Parisa Tehranifar, Julie B. Herbstman, Rachel L. Miller, Mary Beth Terry. Prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and breast tissue composition in adolescent girls [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Environmental Carcinogenesis: Potential Pathway to Cancer Prevention; 2019 Jun 22-24; Charlotte, NC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2020;13(7 Suppl): Abstract nr A15.