ArticleThe Journal of international medical research2026
Associations of volatile organic compounds with cancer: A cross-sectional analysis of single and mixture exposures.
Article in The Journal of international medical research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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4 authors.
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Abstract
BackgroundUrinary volatile organic compounds can accurately reflect individual exposure levels. This study investigated the association between urinary volatile organic compounds and cancer from both single- and combined-exposure perspectives and identified the volatile organic compounds most strongly associated with cancer.MethodsThis cross-sectional study analyzed data from 6056 US adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011-2018 cycles, including 546 individuals with cancer. Logistic regression and restricted cubic spline models were used to evaluate associations for individual volatile organic compound exposures. Subgroup and interaction analyses were conducted to assess differences among populations. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, weighted quantile sum, and Bayesian kernel machine regression models were applied to evaluate mixture associations and to identify volatile organic compounds most strongly associated with cancer.ResultsNine urinary volatile organic compound metabolites were significantly associated with cancer. Among them, N-acetyl-S-(3,4-dihydroxybutyl)-L-cysteine, a metabolite of 1,3-butadiene, and 2-aminothiazoline-4-carboxylic acid, a metabolite of cyanide, exhibited nonlinear dose-response relationships. Subgroup and interaction analyses indicated that age and body mass index were important effect modifiers of these associations. Mixture exposure analyses revealed that higher overall volatile organic compounds exposure levels were associated with a higher prevalence of cancer, with N-acetyl-S-(3,4-dihydroxybutyl)-L-cysteine contributing most strongly to the observed association.ConclusionThis study provides epidemiological evidence of an association between urinary volatile organic compounds and cancer, with N-acetyl-S-(3,4-dihydroxybutyl)-L-cysteine consistently showing the strongest association. These findings highlight the potential public health relevance of exposure to specific volatile organic compounds.
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