UPPER AIRWAYS CANCER MYELOID LEUKAEMIA AND OTHER CANCERS IN A COHORT OF BRITISH CHEMICAL WORKERS EXPOSED TO FORMALDEHYDE

摘要

The International Agency for Research on Cancer controversially has classified formaldehyde as causing nasopharyngeal carcinoma and myeloid leukaemia. To provide further information on this question, we extended follow-up of 14,008 chemical workers at six factories in England and Wales, covering the period 1941-2012. Mortality was compared with national death rates, and associations with incident upper airways cancer and leukaemia were explored in nested case-control analyses. Excess deaths were observed from cancers of the oesophagus (100 v 93.1 expected), stomach (182 v 141.4), rectum (107 v 86.8), liver (35 v 26.9) and lung (813 v 645.8), but none of these tumours exhibited a clear exposure-response relationship. Nested case-control analyses of 115 men with upper airways cancer (including one nasopharyngeal cancer), 92 with leukaemia, and 45 with myeloid leukaemia indicated no elevations of risk in the highest exposure category (high exposure for ≥1 year). When the two highest exposure categories were combined the odds ratio for myeloid leukaemia was 1.26 (95%confidence interval: 0.39, 4.08). Our results provide no support for a hazard of myeloid leukaemia, nasopharyngeal carcinoma or other upper airways tumours from formaldehyde, and indicate that any excess risk of these cancers, even from relatively high exposures, is at most small.