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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on August 10, 2005
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwi240
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American Journal of Epidemiology Copyright © 2005 by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health All rights reserved
Received June 2, 2004
Accepted April 20, 2005

Article

Maternal Serum Levels of Polychlorinated Biphenyls and 1,1-Dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene (DDE) and Time to Pregnancy

Dionne C. Gesink Law 1, Mark A. Klebanoff 2, John W. Brock 3, David B. Dunson 1, and Matthew P. Longnecker 1*

1 Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, NC
2 Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD
3 National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA; Chemistry Department, Warren Wilson College, Asheville, NC

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Matthew P. Longnecker, E-mail: longnec1{at}niehs.nih.gov


  Abstract

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), once used widely in transformers and other applications, and 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene (DDE), the main metabolite of the pesticide 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane (DDT), are hormonally active agents. Changes in menstrual cycle functioning associated with PCBs and DDE, and increased odds of spontaneous abortion associated with DDE, suggest that these compounds could affect fertility. The authors investigated the association between PCB and DDE exposure and time to pregnancy by using serum levels measured in 390 pregnant women in the Collaborative Perinatal Project enrolled at 12 study centers in the United States from 1959 to 1965. They estimated adjusted fecundability odds ratios by using Cox proportional hazards modeling for discrete time data. Compared with time to pregnancy for women in the lowest exposure category (PCBs <1.24 µg/liter, DDE <14 µg/liter), time to pregnancy increased for women in the highest exposure category in terms of both PCBs (fecundability odds ratio for PCBs ≥5.00 µg/liter = 0.65, 95% confidence interval: 0.36, 1.18) and DDE (fecundability odds ratio for DDE ≥60 µg/liter = 0.65, 95% confidence interval: 0.32, 1.31). Overall, time to pregnancy increased with increasing serum PCB levels but was less suggestive of an association with DDE. Both trends were imprecise and attenuated when expressed on a lipid basis. Overall, evidence of an association between PCB or DDE exposure and time to pregnancy was weak and inconclusive.

Keywords: dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene; fertility; fertilization; hydrocarbons, chlorinated; polychlorinated biphenyls; pregnancy; reproduction.
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