Chemicals and Cancer in Humans: First Evidence in Experimental Animals

Certain human diseases have been traced to exposure to environmental and occupational chemicals. In many instances the first evidence of potential adverse effects came from experimental studies and were subsequently discovered in humans. Associations of human cancers, as a diverse group of diseases, and chemicals have been made since the middle 1700s. Since then, nearly 100 chemicals, mixtures of chemicals, or exposure circumstances are now recognized as being or strongly implicated as being carcinogenic to humans. Of the less than 1000 agents evaluated adequately for carcinogenicity in laboratory animals, a varying spectrum of data from studies on humans are available for only about 20-25%. So far, more than 60 agents are linked unequivocally as causing cancer in humans, and another 50 or so are strongly suspected of being carcinogenic to humans. Not all of these have been or can be evaluated in animals because some are industrial processes or "occupations," some are environmental and cultural risk factors, and some are mixtures of agents. For those that can be studied experimentally, the qualitative concordance between humans and animals approaches unity, and in every case there is at least one common organ site of cancer in both species. The evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals preceded that observed in humans for nearly 30 agents and is the subject of this paper.