Cancer risk in aluminum reduction plant workers (Canada)

Abstract

A 14-year update to a previously published historical cohort study of aluminum reduction plant workers was conducted [1]. All men with three or more years at an aluminum reduction plant in British Columbia (BC), Canada between the years 1954 and 1997 were included; a total of 6,423 workers. A total of 662 men were diagnosed with cancer, representing a 400% increase from the original study. Standardized mortality and incidence ratios were used to compare the cancer mortality and incidence of the cohort to that of the BC population. Poisson regression was used to examine risk by cumulative exposure to coal tar pitch volatiles (CTPV) measured as benzene soluble materials (BSM) and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). The risk for bladder cancer was related to cumulative exposure to CTPV measured as BSM and BaP (p trends <0.001), and the risk for stomach cancer was related to exposure measured by BaP (p trend BaP <0.05). The risks for lung cancer (p trend <0.001), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (p trend <0.001), and kidney cancer (p trend <0.01) also increased with increasing exposure, although the overall rates were similar to that of the general population. Analysis of the joint effect of smoking and CTPV exposure on cancer showed the observed dose-response relationships to be independent of smoking.

Long-term follow-up study of mortality and the incidence of cancer in a cohort of workers at a primary aluminum smelter in Sweden

“…Unlike most studies in the aluminum industry, we did not find an association between bladder cancer and work in the aluminum industry (8,(16)(17)(18)(19). Perhaps the absence of any association is due to smoking, which implies that the real risk of lung cancer would be higher than observed in our study if we had been able to control for smoking.…”

“…In a meta-analysis, Armstrong et al (22) concluded that lung cancer is associated both with PAH and aluminum production works, with similar average relative risks of 1.20 and 1.16, respectively. In a later study, Spinelli et al (17) verified an association between work in the aluminum industry and lung cancer. Norwegian studies, however, have not confirmed the increased risk of lung cancer among aluminum industry workers (8,13,18,27), although in an earlier study, Rönneberg & Andersen (28) found an excess risk when comparing observed rates with the rates of the local population.…”

“…The standardized mortality and incidence ratios were calculated for groups of diagnoses with more than 20 cases for mortality and more than 10 for cancer. Pancreatic cancer and cancer of the esophagus were included in order to compare the results with those from previous studies of the pancreas (18) and stomach (17). Due to the limited population size, reference rates from the county of Västernorrland were used only when the number of observed cases was more than 40; 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for the standardized mortality and incidence ratios were calculated on the assumption that the number of observed cases fitted a Poisson distribution (25).…”

“…As regards the incidence of cancer, the most consistent finding in previous studies has been an increased incidence of bladder cancer (8,(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20). Cancer of the lungs (11,14,17,21,22) , pancreas (18), kidneys (15,17,18), lymphoma (17), stomach (17), and brain (23) has also been found to be associated with workers in aluminum plants, but these findings are less consistent. In 1999, Carstensen et al (24) measured high levels of PAH in the blood and urine of a sample of potroom workers, as well as high levels in the air at the same smelter examined in this study, but they found no increase in aromatic DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) adducts when the exposed workers were compared with unexposed workers.…”

Aluminio en el Tracto Respiratorio Bajo de Residentes de la Ciudad de México

“…Las investigaciones muestran que el nivel de toxicidad del Al puede ser muy bajo (21) y puede provocar enfermedades respiratorias (4,16,21,22), neurológicas (15,17,23) y recientemente se ha reportado su efecto cancerígeno (24,25).…”