Followup Study on Malignant Neoplastic and Non Malignant

Follow-up Study on Malignant Neoplastic and Non. Malignant Neoplastic Death and Incidence of Blackfoot Disease and Skin Cancer Patients in the Blackfoot Disease Endemic Area in Taiwan n Blackfoot Disease is an endemic peripheral vascular disorder confined to a limit area on the southwest coast of Taiwan. Although its etiology is still unclear, blackfoot disease has been relater to drinking waterderived from artesian wells in the endemic area. Arsenic has been documented as one of the human carcinogen. The epidemiological studiesbetween inorganic arsenic and skin cancer, lung cancer are very complete. A recent study of malignant neoplasms of the skin, liver, lung, bladder, kidney and clorectum on south-western coast of Taiwan showed a significantassociation with the duration of high-arsenic artesian well water use. This study combined three cohort studies: (1)Hyper-endemic villager cohortincluding a total of 1571 residents born before 1959 in Ho-Mei, Fu-Hsin and Hsin-Ming villages where the blackfoot disease was hyper-endemic. (2)BFDcontrol cohort including 257 blackfoot disease cases and 753 age-sex-residence matched healthy controls, and (3)skin cancercontrol cohort including 252 non-melanoma skin cnacer cases and 246 age-sex-residence matched healthy controls. The total of the cohort is 2932 residents followed-up at 1996 to 1997. Cox' sproportional hazard regression analyses of multiple risk factors asociated withdeath of non-malignant neo; lasm diseases and incidence, dehat of all cancers showed a statistically significant association between age, the duration of drinking artesian well water, blackfoot disease patients and non-melanoma skincancer patients.