Health risk assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons through aquaculture fish consumption, Malaysia

Fish are an important source of proteins and healthy lipids. However, they can accumulate nonpolar pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from their aquatic environment through absorption and/or adsorption. Human exposure to parent PAHs by fish consumption has not yet been determined. This study aims to assess the exposure of Malaysians to PAHs through fish ingestion and to estimate the lifetime cancer risk using the cancer risk assessment guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and previous studies. Giant sea perch (barramundi) were collected from a fish farm on Langkawi Island. The mean concentration of 18 PAHs in the giant sea perch was 573.66 ± 47.56 ng g−1 dry weight. The abundance of low-molecular-weight PAHs (63%) was higher than that of high-molecular-weight PAHs (37%), indicating that petrogenic inputs were higher than pyrogenic inputs. The average daily intake of the 18 PAHs through giant sea perch consumption was 294.47 [ng/kg bwt/day]−1. The lifetime cancer risks for the 18 PAHs were 1.06 × 10−4, 4.55 × 10−5, and 3.69 × 10−6 when the frequencies of exposure were assumed as 365 days year−1 for people who eat fish seven times a week, 156 days year−1 for people who eat fish three times a week, and 52 days year−1 for people who eat fish once a week, respectively. These results are within the acceptable criterion of the US EPA (10−6 to 10−4). The present study suggests that the consumption of giant sea perch does not pose a significant source of PAH exposure to Malaysians.