Current understandings and perspectives on non-cancer health effects of benzene: A global concern

• Benzene is a volatile organic compound and established blood carcinogen.
• Exposure to benzene needs to be evaluated in related chronic diseases.
• Cigarette smoke is the main source for indoor benzene exposure.
• Health outcomes associated with air pollutants are poorly characterized due to lack of comprehensive monitoring system.

ObjectiveBenzene, as a volatile organic compound, is known as one of the main air pollutants in the environment. The aim of this review is to summarize all available evidences on non-cancerous health effects of benzene providing an overview of possible association of exposure to benzene with human chronic diseases, specially, in those regions of the world where benzene concentration is being poorly monitored.MethodologyA bibliographic search of scientific databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scirus was conducted with key words of “benzene toxic health effects”, “environmental volatile organic compounds”, “diabetes mellitus and environmental pollutants”, “breast cancer and environmental pollution”, “prevalence of lung cancer”, and “diabetes prevalence”. More than 300 peer reviewed papers were examined. Experimental and epidemiologic studies reporting health effects of benzene and volatile organic compounds were included in the study.ResultsEpidemiologic and experimental studies suggest that benzene exposure can lead to numerous non-cancerous health effects associated with functional aberration of vital systems in the body like reproductive, immune, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, and respiratory.ConclusionChronic diseases have become a health burden of global dimension with special emphasis in regions with poor monitoring over contents of benzene in petrochemicals. Benzene is a well known carcinogen of blood and its components, but the concern of benzene exposure is more than carcinogenicity of blood components and should be evaluated in both epidemiologic and experimental studies. Aspect of interactions and mechanism of toxicity in relation to human general health problems especially endocrine disturbances with particular reference to diabetes, breast and lung cancers should be followed up.