Occupational exposure and lung cancer risk

Abstract

The importance of occupation held longest as a risk factor for lung cancer was examined in a prospective study in Norway of 11,995 men, among whom 125 cases occurred in a follow-up from 1966 through 1978. Based on information about occupation held longest, the respondents were classified into 3 groups according to suspected exposure to respiratory carcinogens at the workplace. After stratification for age, place of residence and cigarette smoking, we found a highly significant relative risk of 2.6 for those judged to have experienced definite exposure versus the group with no workplace exposure. The apparent risk-enhancing effect of occupational exposure was observed for all histologic subtypes. Stratification including a socioeconomic factor score led to a moderate reduction in the relative risk estimate. High risk estimates still obtained, however, for a limited number of occupations, the highest for workers in the mining and quarrying industries. Although the interpretation of the observed effect associated with a crude index of occupational exposure may be difficult, our results suggest that between 13 and 27% of the lung cancer cases observed among Norwegian men in the relevant time period can be attributed to harmful work-place exposure.

Alternative for estimating the burden of lung cancer from occupational exposures - some calculations based on data from Swedish men

“…Data from both Norway and Finland corroborate this assumption (1,14,15). All the indicated estimates also include effects of life-style factors other than smoking, as well as environmental exposures associated with living and working in industrialized areas.…”

“…The indicated estimates are in no way contradictory because attributable risks add up to more than 100% when there is interaction between the risk factors. In another Norwegian study (15), definite exposure to occupational carcinogens was estimated to be involved in 13-27% of the cases, and a fairly similar estimate of 29% for men has recently been reported from Finland (1). A predictive study regarding avoidable cancers in the Nordic countries suggested that, for Swedish men, 22% of the lung cancers (505 out of 2299) in the year 2000 would depend on industrial exposures to arsenic, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, metals, and mining (16).…”

Occupational airborne exposure of the general population of a Norwegian county.

“…However, these entities may be poor indicators of lifetime exposure. Nevertheless, occupational title has shown to be a marker for both lung cancer (2,3) and obstructive lung disease (4). Few community surveys have focused on complete work histories of subjects in general population samples (5).…”

Arbeidsmiljø og røyking som årsak til lungekreft: noen epidemiologiske betraktninger

“…Effekten på beregnet lungekreftrisiko ved korrigering for røykevaner kan vi også finne i norske undersøkelser (10,11,15). Resultatene er presentert i tabell 3, og som man ser er avviket relativt lite.…”

“…I to av de norske undersøkelsene som tidligere er referert, er det utført tilsvarende beregninger. Resultatene fremgår av tabell 5 (11,21).…”