Background: Thailand remains a primarily agricultural country and Thai farmers are heavy users of pesticides. Coincidentally the incidence of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is high in parts of the country, but no previous study has examined any association between the two.
Materials and methods: The present matched, case-control study covered patients admitted to Srinagarind Hospital, Khon Kaen University, Thailand. The case group comprised 210 cases diagnosed with CCA and the control group 840 diagnosed with other diseases. Cases and controls were matched for sex, age within five years, and date of admission within three months. Multiple conditional logistic regression was used for the analysis.
Results: After adjusting for potential confounders, pesticide use as compared with never used pesticide was not associated with CCA (ORadj=1.11, 95% CI: 0.77, 1.60) and neither was there any significant relationship between CCA and duration of pesticide use, type or number of types of pesticide.
Conclusions: The current study thus found no association between pesticide use and CCA.