Esophageal cancer and occupation in a cohort of swedish men

Abstract

Using the Cancer Environment Registry of Sweden, which links the 1960 census information on employment with cancer incidence data from 1961-1979, we conducted a systematic, population-based assessment of esophageal cancer incidence by industry and occupation for men in Sweden. A general reduction in esophageal cancer incidence was found among agricultural and professional workers, whereas excess incidence was found among business, sales, and some craftsmen and production jobs. Elevated incidence was associated with several specific industries, including the food (SIR = 1.3, p < 0.05), beverage and tobacco (SIR = 1.8, p < 0.05) industries, vulcanizing shops within the rubber industry (SIR = 4.7, p < 0.01), and certain automotive building industries. Incidence also was increased among brewery workers (SIR = 4.2, p < 0.01) and butchers (SIR = 2.1, p < 0.01), and among individuals with certain service jobs, particularly waiters in the hotel and restaurant industry (SIR = 3.1, p < 0.01). Some of the occupational associations may be explained by lifestyle factors such as alcohol drinking and smoking, whereas others are specific and tend to support those of earlier investigations. This study adds to the evidence of a small but possibly important role of occupation in esophageal cancer etiology.

Cancer risk among Finnish food industry workers

“…31,33 An excess of oesophageal cancer has been found among Swedish male confectionery makers. 11 We did not find any excesses of cancer among the chocolate and confectionery workers in our cohort.…”

“…Food industry workers as an undivided occupational group have shown an elevated risk of cancer of the oesophagus, 11 stomach, [12][13][14] small intestine, 15 gall bladder 16 and pancreas. 16 We only found an excess of pancreas cancer among Finnish male food industry workers.…”

“…Among beverage manufacturing workers, elevated risks for oesophageal 11,34 , stomach 27 , pancreas 16 and lung cancer 16 have been found. We found an excess of pancreatic and soft tissue cancer.…”

Trichloroethylene and cancer: epidemiologic evidence.

“…Esophageal cancer is elevated in the two dry cleaner cohorts reporting this outcome (15,39) and elevated in one case-control study (49). An excess of esophageal cancer is not found among laundry workers, a population similar to dry cleaners but without exposure to PERC (53). These observations suggest that PERC is the likely etiologic agent for both of these outcomes but warrant further investigation for confirmation and to adjust for other known risk factors for cancer at these sites.…”

Critical review of the epidemiological literature on occupational exposure to perchloroethylene and cancer

“…Occupation or industry classification at one point in time was used as a surrogate of exposure [2,24,54,55,59,63,64]. These reports presented results for the combined group of laundry and dry-cleaning workers and, therefore, likely included a large proportion of subjects not exposed to PCE.…”