Evaluating the relationship between chemical exposure and cryptorchidism

  • Authors:

  • Kristina Voigt;Rainer Brueggemann;Hagen Scherb;Heqing Shen;Karl-Werner Schramm

  • Affiliations:

  • Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Institute of Biomathematics and Biometry, Neuherberg, Germany;Leibniz-Institute of Fresh Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany;Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Institute of Biomathematics and Biometry, Neuherberg, Germany;Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Institute of Ecological Chemistry, Neuherberg, Germany and Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute o ...;Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Institute of Ecological Chemistry, Neuherberg, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Environmental Modelling & Software
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

One method for the evaluation of complex environmental and health datasets is the discrete mathematical method Hasse diagram technique based on partial orders. The introduced software program package is named PyHasse. In this paper we evaluate a possible human association between maternal exposure to organochlorine compounds used as pesticides and cryptorchidism among male children in Finland and Denmark. We identified differences in comparable and incomparable objects and quantified these differences by the software tool Similarity Analysis in the program PyHasse. Furthermore we interpreted the corresponding Hasse diagrams concerning chosen ''striking objects''. We found the position of the chemicals AHCH (alpha-Hexachlorohexane), CHCE (cis-Heptachloroepoxide), DIEL (Dieldrin), and MIRE (Mirex) has some influence on the differentiation of the Hasse diagrams and hence of each two datasets analyzed. The largest disparities can be observed when we compare the Finnish and Danish datasets concerning cryptorchidism. The disparities are demonstrated in the corresponding Hasse diagrams.