The excesses detected in the areas with higher exposure levels were observed mainly among females. Of course, a chance finding could be an explanation given multiple testing but it should also considered that women are a more stable population than men and misclassification of exposure is less likely to have occurred. On the other hand, most of the associations that were found for mortality cancer outcomes were not confirmed by incidence data although the time window of follow-up was the same (1990-2003). A possible explanation of these findings is that the effect of the exposure on cancer incidence precedes the time window of our study so that only mortality is affected.