Mortality among workers at a plastics manufacturing and research and development facility: 1946–1988

Abstract

Mortality through 1988 was studied for 5,932 male employees who worked between January 1, 1946 and December 31, 1967 at a New Jersey plastics manufacturing and research and development facility. The cohort was followed for an average of 32 years and included 1,859 deaths. Potential exposures included asbestos, formaldehyde, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Mortality rates for the cohort were compared to both U.S. and state mortality rates, and analyses were also performed by lagging duration of employment. Based on U.S. rates, mortality among hourly males (n = 3,853) from all cancers was similar to expected [standardized mortality ratio (SMR), 102; 95% confidence interval (CI), 92-114]. Excess mortality among hourly workers was seen for pancreatic cancer (SMR, 146; 95% CI, 95-216) and "malignancies of other parts of the respiratory system" (SMR, 373; 95% CI, 121-870). The latter excess was due entirely to five deaths from pleural mesothelioma. There were no deaths identified due to nasal cavity or nasopharyngeal cancers, or angiosarcoma of the liver. Mortality from leukemia among research and development workers (n = 1,421) was significantly elevated (SMR, 265; 95% CI, 115-524) and related to assignment to process development. This study verifies the excess of pancreatic cancer among workers at the facility seen in earlier studies and observes excesses of mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure and leukemia in process development workers.

Assessment of the effect of occupational exposure to formaldehyde on the risk of lung cancer in two Canadian population-based case–control studies

“…For some subjects, occupational history was provided by a proxy, which could have resulted in misclassification of formaldehyde exposure. However, these errors significant (6,9), one among women only (13). In two smaller cohorts of health professionals, statistically significant inverse associations (standardized mortality ratios) were reported (8,16).…”

“…Both were among the case-control investigations with the largest numbers of exposed cases. Among the same 23 studies, only a few further analyzed each of the more refined measures of formaldehyde exposure, including exposure level (2,10,12,27), lifetime cumulative exposure (2,6,23,28), duration of exposure (2,6,7,9,10,18,24), time since first exposure (6,7,18), and peak exposure (2). However, even when formaldehyde exposure was analyzed using these more detailed metrics, increased risks were observed only in two studies with high exposure level (10) and longer exposure duration (24), and a decreased risk was reported with longer duration in another (7).…”

“…Some of the older studies used job title (often embalmers or pathologists) as a proxy for exposure (8, 14-17, 19, 21) or a more elaborate job exposure matrix (JEM) but focused on the last job held as indicated on the death certificate (27). Other methods included the use of (i) employment records (2,6,7,9,10,12,13,18,22,25,26), (ii) a JEM, (iii) industrial hygiene data (2,6,10,18,22,23,25,26), or (iv) selfreport of exposure to formaldehyde (11,20,24) or occupational history (23,28). Information on smoking, a key potential confounder, was available and accounted for in the analyses in only seven studies (6,11,20,22,24,25,28), some of which had large proportions of missing values for smoking variables.…”

The Enigmatic Epidemiology of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

“…Although three case-control studies observed a 2-to 4-fold excess risk of NPC (177,199,203), and a U.S. study found an increased risk of type I but not type II or III NPC (204), most case-control studies in high-and low-incidence areas (40,179,199,200,205,206), as well as occupational cohort studies in nonendemic areas (207)(208)(209)(210)(211)(212)(213), found no significant association of formaldehyde exposure with overall NPC risk. Cohorts of formaldehyde workers in Denmark (214) and fiberboard manufacturers in Sweden (215) experienced a significant excess of nasal cavity cancers or NPC, respectively, but U.S. cohorts of male embalmers and funeral directors, who also have occupational formaldehyde exposure, had no excess risk (216,217).…”

Case-series investigation of intracranial neoplasms at a petrochemical research facility

“…This pattern was more pronounced for benign intracranial tumors than for brain cancer, suggesting better detection as the explanation, and was more pronounced for men than for women. In contrast, many studies of the petroleum and petrochemical industries found that white collar workers had brain cancer mortality rates close to, or slightly below, the general population rates [Hoar and Pell, 1981;Waxweiler et al, 1983;Chiazze et al, 1986;Bond et al, 1987;O'Berg et al, 1987;Teta et al, 1990;Arnetz et al, 1991;Teta et al, 1991;Delzell et al, 1992;Dell and Teta, 1995;Satin et al, 1996]. On balance, the generally high economic status of the subjects is unlikely to explain entirely the excess of brain cancer in B500.…”