ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Possible links of wildfires with oncological diseases of children and adults in the Russian Far East

Pinaev SK1,8, Venevsky S2,3, Chakov VV1, Tian L4, Gong P4, Kaprin AD5, Starinsky VV5, Chizhov AYa6,7, Pinaeva OG8
About authors

1 Khabarovsk Federal Research Center, Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Khabarovsk, Russia

2 Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

3 The Southern Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

4 The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

5 National Medical Research Radiological Centre of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. Moscow, Russia

6 Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

7 Burnazyan Federal Medical Biophysical Center of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency, Moscow, Russia

8 Far Eastern State Medical University, Khabarovsk, Russia

Correspondence should be addressed: Sergey K. Pinaev
Muravyova-Amuskogo, 35, Khabarovsk, 680000, Russia; ur.liam@veanip

About paper

Acknowledgments: we thank Professor N.E. Kosykh from Far Eastern Medical University for their help in collecting data on the updated incidence of malignant neoplasms in children in Khabarovskij Kraj. We acknowledged Olga P. Gretsova for preparing the data for analysis. S. Venevsky acknowledges the support from the Russian State Assignment of the Federal Research Centre of the Southern Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SSC RAS) (122013100131-9) and Department of Earth System Sciences of Tsinghua University.

Author contribution: Pinaev SK — author of the general idea and the main design of the study, collection and analysis of data, and formation of hypotheses; Venevsky S — developed method of spatial and non-linear temporal analysis, presentation and interpretation of results of this analysis and made conclusions; Chakov VV — collection and analysis of information about the fire situation in the Far Eastern Federal district on the basis of data presented in the public domain; Linwei Tian — run ARIMA analysis; Chizhov AYa, Peng Gong, Pinaeva OG — participated in the planning of the study and discussion of the results; Kaprin AD, Venevsky S — Participation in research planning and formation of data on CI based on the national cancer registry of Russia; Venevsky S, Pinaev SK — wrote the manuscript.

Received: 2023-04-25 Accepted: 2023-07-29 Published online: 2023-08-26
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Russian Federal Far East District is a continental scale area where wildfires are frequent. We aimed to a) determine whether wildfires are related statistically to cancer for children and adults in the Russian Federal Far East District (FFED); b) to estimate time lags of such relationships and c) to find out which age groups are most vulnerable for wildfires. Annual number of fires (NF) in administrative units (AUs), normalized to the maximum value for all AUs in observation period 1992–2019, was taken as a characteristic of wildfires in our analysis. Annual cancer incidence (CI) for five cancer types for children up to 14 years and the entire population, normalized similarly to NF, was compared to normalized NF. ARIMA models were used for time series analysis for the period 1992–2019. Linear statistical analysis was done for NF and CI for short time series (10–12 years) for the central AU of FFED for “children up to 4 years”; Three additional embryonal types of cancer and five benign types of tumors were also focused in linear statistical analysis. ARIMA analysis revealed 27 associations between NF and CI with a lag from 0 to 3 years for two age groups, and five cancer types (p-values between 0.002 and 0.1). Linear statistical analysis for “children up to 4 years” revealed correlations for two from three embryonal types of cancer and three from five benign tumors (0.002 < p < 0.046). Incidences of hematopoietic, lymphoid, vascular, and soft tissue neoplasms, as well as CNS tumors had associations with wildfires for “children up to 4 years”,  for “children up to 14 years” and “the entire population” age groups in many cases. Entire population and children up to 4 years in the central AU of FFED are most sensitive to wildfire — cancer interactions. Associations “number of fires — cancer incidence” as a rule have time lags from 0 to 3 years.

Keywords: wildfires, cancer incidence, ARIMA analysis, Far Eastern Federal district of Russian Federation

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