Research of Pesticide Metabolites in Human Brain Tumor Tissues by Chemometrics-Based Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry Analysis for a Hypothetical Correlation between Pesticide Exposure and Risk Factor of Central Nervous System Tumors

Pesticides are widely used, resulting in continuing human exposure with potential health impacts. Some exposures related to agricultural works have been associated with neurological disorders. Since the 2000s, the hypothesis of the role of pesticides in the occurrence of central nervous system (CNS) tumors has been better documented in the literature. However, the etiology of childhood brain cancers still remains largely unknown. The major objective of this work was to assess the potential role of pesticide exposure as a risk factor for CNS tumors based on questionnaires and statistical analysis of information collected from patients hospitalized in the Neurosurgery Department of the Habib Bourguiba Hospital Medium in Sfax, Tunisia, during the period from January 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023. It also aimed to develop a simple and rapid analytical method by the gas chromatography–mass spectrometry technique for the research traces of pesticide metabolites in some collected human brain tumor tissues in order to more emphasize our hypothesis for such a correlation between pesticide exposure and brain tumor development. Patients with a history of high-risk exposure were selected to conduct further analysis. Chemometric methods were adapted to discern intrinsic variation between pathological and control groups and ascertain effective separation with the identification of differentially expressed metabolites accountable for such variations. Three samples revealed traces of pesticide metabolites that were mostly detected at an early age. The histopathological diagnosis was medulloblastoma for a 10-year-old child and high-grade gliomas for 27- and 35-year-old adults. The bivariate analyses (odds ratio >1 and P value