Occupation and bladder cancer: a death-certificate study

Abstract

Summary Occupational statements on death certificates of 2,457 males aged 25-64 who died from bladder cancer in selected coastal and estaurine regions of England and Wales during [1965][1966][1967][1968][1969][1970][1971][1972][1973][1974][1975][1976][1977][1978][1979][1980] were studied.Excess mortality was found for deck and engine room crew of ships, railway workers, electrical and electronic workers, shoemakers and repairers, and tobacco workers. An excess of cases also occurred among food workers, particularly those employed in the bread and flour confectionary industry or involved in the extraction of animal and vegetable oils and fats. Use of a job-exposure matrix revealed elevated risk for occupations in which most workers were exposed to paints and pigments, benzene and cutting oils.Bladder cancer has been recognised as an occupational disease since the late part of the nineteenth century. The causal association with exposure to aromatic amines used in the chemical dyestuff and rubber industries has been well documented (IARC, 1990 (1-99,999; 100,000-249,999 and 250,000 + residents).Indirect age standardisation was used to calculate for each occupation and industry a mortality ratio standardised for age and degree of urbanisation (SMR). The SMR denominators were calculated by multiplying age-and urbanisationspecific mortality rates by the age-and urbanisation-specific population estimates for each occupation and industry.Ninety-five per cent confidence intervals were calculated using tables of confidence limits for the mean of a Poisson distribution (Pearson & Hartly, 1976).Assessment of risk associated with exposure to specific chemical agents was undertaken using a job-exposure matrix developed by Pannett and colleagues (Pannett et al., 1985). Occupations were identified in which a high proportion of workers in 1950 were likely to have been exposed to a specific chemical agent. The observed and expected number of deaths for the selected occupations were summed and an SMR calculated.

Cancer risk among Finnish food industry workers

“…An excess mortality of bladder cancer occurred among food workers in England and Wales, particularly among those employed in the bread and flour confectionary industry or involved in the extraction of animal and vegetable oils and fats. 19 We found excesses of kidney cancer among men in the food industry, but not among women. Kidney cancer has not been reported in previous studies.…”

Bladder Cancer Risk in Painters: a Review of the Epidemiological Evidence, 1989–2004*

“…Furthermore, there was no clear indication of the type of paints used in most studies, thus hampering the assessment of the substances potentially responsible for the excess bladder cancer risk in painters. Some studies suggested that the association was stronger for selected categories of painters, such as railway and coach painters [8], pictorial artists [12], construction painters [23], or car painters [5]. The data, however, were inadequate to address the risk of selected occupational subgroups.…”

Bladder cancer risk in sales workers: Artefact or cause for concern?

“…We identified 10 case-control studies (13 publications) [Coggon et al, 1984;Vineis and Magnani, 1985;Steenland et al, 1987;Silverman et al, 1989aSilverman et al, ,b, 1990Burns and Swanson, 1991;Swanson and Burns, 1995;Teschke et al, 1997;Mannetje et al, 1999;Kogevinas et al, 2003;Colt et al, 2004;Gaertner et al, 2004], two record linkage studies [Malker et al, 1987;Ji et al, 2005], a death certificate study [Dolin and Cook-Mozaffari, 1992], a mortality survey [Reviere et al, 1995], and a proportionate mortality study [Schulz and Loomis, 2000], reporting risk estimates for sales occupations or industries in relation to bladder cancer. Two studies were excluded because the findings for sales workers were only reported within a broader category of clerical and sales workers [Anton-Culver et al, 1992;Sadetzki et al, 2000].…”

“…When the risk estimates from a study were presented for both occupation and industry [Steenland et al, 1987;Burns and Swanson, 1991;Reviere et al, 1995;Schulz and Loomis, 2000], we only used the estimates for occupation. When the results were presented for main as well as sub-categories of sales occupations [Silverman et al, 1989a[Silverman et al, , 1990Dolin and Cook-Mozaffari, 1992;Kogevinas et al, 2003;Colt et al, 2004] only the estimate for the main category was included in the meta-analysis.…”