Workers, communities, end-users of consumer products and the general public have a heightened interest in the causes of cancer due to frequent media attention and a personal fear of developing this disease, which accounts for about 25% of American deaths each year. In 2007, 559,650 persons died of cancer in the U.S. The number of new cases each year is 1.4 million, and is expected to increase as the baby boom generation ages (American Cancer Society). Significant improvements in cancer detection, supportive care and therapeutic advances in the past few decades have resulted in increasing numbers of cancer survivors.
While epidemiology has contributed a great deal of knowledge about risk factors for various types of cancer, a great deal about causation remains unknown, especially for relatively rare cancers such as brain cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma. Known or suspected cancer risk factors include certain chemicals, selected therapeutic treatments, and other agents such as radiation and asbestos that have been identified through epidemiology studies, typically of populations with high cumulative or high intensity of exposure. Potential exposure to these agents occurs or has occurred in the workplace, outside the boundaries of manufacturing facilities, and through the use of consumer products. The presence of chemicals has been detected in humans in biomarkers of exposure studies. As a result, concerns are often raised that individuals, potentially exposed even at low levels, are at increased risk of cancer.
Key scientific issues that typically must be explored to address exposure concerns, including levels of exposure, risk at low exposures, evidence of a threshold, and alternative explanations of cancer causation. Cancer epidemiologists employ various approaches, including cluster investigation; literature reviews of human, animal, and experimental studies; meta-analyses; or a targeted epidemiologic study of the population of interest. Study designs might include a cohort mortality or cancer incidence, cancer case-control, proportional mortality or incidence; or correlational investigations. In addition, a surveillance program of data collection, analysis, and reporting can be established to monitor cancer trends on a routine basis.
Exponent’s Center for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Computational Biology includes trained epidemiologists and biostatisticians, most of whom hold doctoral degrees in this field, and the majority have expertise in occupational and environmental epidemiology. Our scientists have successfully conducted numerous cancer cluster investigations, literature reviews, meta-analyses, and epidemiologic studies of various designs related to cancer concerns or allegations. These studies often involve collaboration with toxicology, exposure assessment, computer science, and medical personnel in other areas of the firm. Our cancer epidemiologists’ expertise includes such diverse exposures as TCE, benzene, asbestos, radiation, chemotherapeutic agents, butadiene, ethylene oxide, dioxins, beryllium, chromium, radio frequency, electromagnetic fields, vinyl chloride, and others. Some of the cancers that we have studied are brain cancer, leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, breast cancer, lung cancer, mesothelioma, testicular cancer, and pancreatic cancer.
Several of Exponent’s scientists in this field have combined their cancer epidemiology backgrounds with expertise in cancer mechanisms, regulatory cancer risk assessment methods, and risk communication. They are frequently called upon to serve on scientific advisory committees, as journal editors or peer reviewers, and as invited presenters at scientific seminars. Exponent personnel serve as consultants to industry, government, academia, and National Cancer Institute–designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers.
Our senior epidemiologists have diverse employment backgrounds, including careers at the National Cancer Institute, universities, health departments, and industry. These scientists are experienced with the various issues that arise in cancer epidemiology and how best to address them. We publish scientific papers and regularly present our research at scientific meetings. Our staff’s publications list is extensive and includes the foremost peer-reviewed scientific journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, Cancer, American Journal of Epidemiology, and Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.