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Digestive Cancers Linked To Occupational Asbestos Exposure

There appears to be a relationship between occupational exposure to asbestos and risk of developing digestive cancers, suggest French researchers.

Investigators from Caen France Registre des Tumeurs Digestive du Calvados in Caen found that 56 digestive cancers occurred in a population of 1,454 men and 366 women who worked at a company using asbestos to manufacture fireproof textiles and friction materials.

Precise occupational exposure data was available for the participants who were followed for 18 years.

The researchers say that 48.4 was the number of digestive cancers expected in the study population. The Standardised Incidence Ratio (SIR) was 1.16.

"Compared with incidence in the county, SIR was not significant for any digestive localisation but for the peritoneum," the investigators report. "However, even after taking into account the potential confounders via the Cox model, there was a significant dose-response relationship between the occurrence of digestive cancers and the mean exposure concentration, even after exclusion of peritoneum cancers."

The role of asbestos exposure in the development of several cancers has been well established, they point out. But the link between occupational asbestos exposure and digestive cancer has remained controversial.

The researchers note most studies of asbestos and cancer are based on mortality data, but with in-house job-exposure matrix data available, they were able to calculate a cumulative exposure index and a mean exposure concentration for each participant.
European Journal of Cancer Prevention, 2002; 11: 523-528. "Incidence of digestive cancers and occupational exposure to asbestos."

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