Environmental Noise Exposure and Risk of Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Purpose of review: Environmental noise has been identified as a risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes. Its association with cancer risk remains poorly understood. This systematic review (on evidence up to February 2025) is to synthesize and meta-analyze the epidemiological evidence.

Recent findings: The studies involved over ten million participants, predominantly from Europe. The most reported outcomes were breast and colorectal cancers, with road traffic noise exposure being the most frequently assessed exposure. The pooled random-effects estimates indicated null association between road traffic noise and breast cancer incidence (RR 1.01; 95% CI 0.99-1.03) or mortality (RR 0.98; 95% CI 0.86-1.10), nor with colon cancer subtypes. Studies risk of bias was high to probably high, particularly in exposure assessment and confounding control. Overall, the available evidence does not support an association between traffic noise and cancer incidence or mortality. However, the certainty of evidence is very low due to methodological heterogeneity, high risk of bias, and the limited number of studies for most cancer sites.