Mortality among styrene-exposed workers in the reinforced plastic boatbuilding industry

Abstract

COPD was more pronounced among those with potential high-styrene exposure. However, no outcome was related to estimated cumulative styrene exposure, and there was no change when latency was taken into account. We found no excess leukaemia or lymphoma mortality. As in most occupational cohort studies, lack of information on lifestyle factors or other employment was a substantial limitation although we excluded from the analyses those (n=3525) who worked <1 year. Unanticipated excess ovarian cancer mortality could be a chance finding. Comparing subcohorts with potential high-styrene and low-styrene exposure, COPD mortality SRR was elevated while lung cancer SRR was not, suggesting that smoking was not the only cause for excess COPD mortality.

Non‐malignant respiratory disease among workers in industries using styrene—A review of the evidence

“…In Table , we summarize 25 articles describing 24 mortality studies of 13 occupational cohorts with 343–35,443 workers [Frentzel‐Beyme et al, ; Nicholson et al, ; Ott et al, ; Meinhardt et al, ; Bond et al, , ; Hodgson and Jones, ; Okun et al, ; Coggon et al, , ; Matanoski and Schwartz, ; Matanoski et al, ; Wong, ; Cowles et al, ; Olsen et al, ; Wong et al, ; Welp et al, ; Sathiakumar et al, ; Wong and Trent, ; Marsh et al, ; Burns et al, ; Macaluso et al, ; Ruder et al, ; Sathiakumar and Delzell, ; Collins et al, ; Ruder et al, ]. Required tenure varied by study from ≥1 day to ≥5 years.…”

Occupational exposure to benzene, toluene, xylene and styrene and risk of prostate cancer in a population-based study

“…Most studies relied on mortality data, which is less well suited for studying PCa aetiology, and were limited by the paucity of information on lifestyle factors. The lack of detailed administrative records also precluded taking into account the full variability in exposure between workers within a department30 or company 32. Two nested case–control analyses of industrial cohorts investigated the relationships between PCa mortality36 or incidence37 and exposure to specific MAHs, reporting positive associations with exposure to benzene37 or xylene 36.…”

Cancer mortality update with an exposure response analysis among styrene‐exposed workers in the reinforced plastics boatbuilding industry

“…The previous mortality analysis, which was restricted to workers with more than 1 year of employment, also suggested an elevation of leukemia cases among workers with high styrene exposure, which internally compared those in Group 1 to all others, reporting an SRR, of 2.97 (95%CI: 0.54, 16.20). This is similar to the equivalent RR of 3.6 (95%CI: 0.5, 23.5) reported in Supplemental Table S1, which added 5 years of follow‐up but removed administrative workers (Group 5).…”

“…For example, personal and area samples were collected in 1978 on workers in the two companies from this cohort and reported a mean styrene TWA of 42.5 ppm (range 12‐85 ppm) in company A and a mean styrene TWA of 71.7 ppm (range 10‐183 ppm) in company B. In comparison, Macaluso, Larson, Lynch, Lipton, Delzell reported for workers in the styrene‐butadiene rubber industry average daily exposure of 1.2‐1.4 ppm at two facilities.…”

“…In addition, risk‐sets also matched on race, gender, birth date (within 2.5 years), and employment duration (<1 year and > = 1 year of employment) of the case. Risk‐sets were matched on employment duration because previous analyses found an excess of deaths from outcomes indicative of a different lifestyle profile (such as alcoholism, homicides, and accidents) among those employed less than a year.…”