Vinyl Chloride Cancer Mechanism

Vinyl chloride monomer is a known cause of angiosarcoma of the liver.

Vinyl chloride cancer mechanism. Studies of long term exposure in animals showed that cancer of the liver and mammary gland may increase at very low levels of vinyl chloride in the air 50 ppm. Vinyl chloride is a chlorinated hydrocarbon occurring as a colorless highly flammable gas with a mild sweet odor that may emit toxic fumes of carbon dioxide carbon monoxide hydrogen chloride and phosgene when heated to decomposition. Vinyl chloride is used primarily to make pvc a substance used in products such as pipes. In the 1970s epidemiologists found that workers in factories using vinyl chloride the key ingredient for pvc plastics had unusually high rates of a rare form of liver cancer called angiosarcoma.

Discovered in 1835 it is used as an intermediate in the production of polyvinyl chloride pvc which is molded into pvc piping and bottles. Dalpiaz in drug induced liver disease third edition 2013. Vinyl chloride was considered by previous iarc working groups in 1974 1978 1987 and 2007 iarc 1974 1979 1987 2008. It also has other toxic effects on the liver and it has recently been suggested that exposure to vinyl chloride also causes.

Since that time new data have become available which have been incorporated in this monograph and taken into consideration in the present evaluation. 3 acute inhalation exposure to vinyl chloride can cause dizziness nausea headache fatigue visual and hearing disturbances sleep disturbances unconsciousness and in high concentrations death. Vinyl chloride is an organochloride flammable gas with a sickly sweet odor which is a colorless at ambient temperature. There is strong evidence from both human and animal studies that vinyl chloride causes cancer via a genotoxic mechanism.

About 13 billion kilograms are produced annually. Vinyl chloride is primarily used to make polyvinyl chloride to manufacture plastics.