Cent Eur J Public Health 2014, 22(3):197-200

Epidemiological Data and Cancer Risk Assessment: Cessation Lag and Lingering Effect Concepts

Vladimír Bencko¹, Chao Chen²

¹ Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

² US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., USA

Cessation lag and lingering effect are two important aspects of risk assessment, and have potential applications to dose-response analysis in risk assessment. In addition to providing insight into biological mode of action, the concept of cessation lag is useful for economic benefit analysis. Concept of effect lingering can be used to analyze epidemiological data by uncovering the hidden biological implications related to disease endpoints, thereby advancing current efforts to characterize and reduce risk assessment uncertainties. Multicentre study design is proposed as a way to increase study size and to mitigate criticism of meta-analysis of independent studies. Individual studies from a multicentre study can be either pooled using original data, or combined by meta-analysis of summarized results. A multicentre study of large cohort or case-control study also offers an exciting opportunity to study the contribution of epigenetic events that may be associated with life-style and environmental risk factors for human health. Methods for optimizing exposure assessment and reducing exposure misclassification represent important but difficult components in epidemiological studies. Biomarkers present a potentially useful approach for improving exposure estimates.

Keywords: epidemiological data, carcinogenicity, multicentre studies, lingering effect, cessation lag, risk assessment

Received: June 24, 2013; Revised: July 31, 2014; Accepted: July 31, 2014; Published: September 1, 2014  Show citation