American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 136, No. 4: 389-398
Copyright © 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
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Mortality among Workers Exposed to Polychlorinated Biphenyls
1Medical Birth Registry of Norway, University of Bergen Bergen, Norway
2Epidemiology Section, Epidemiology Resource Center, Indiana State Department of Health Indianapolis, IN
3Current address: Department of Family and Community Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School Norfolk, VA
Reprint requests to Dr. Thomas Sinks at the Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects, Center for Environmental Health and Injury Control, Centers for Disease Control, 1600 Clifton Road NE, Mailstop F46, Atlanta, GA 30333
On the basis of evidence from animal studies, polychlotinated biphenyls (PCBs) are considered potentially carcinogenic to humans. However, the results of studies in human populations exposed to PCBs have been inconsistent. The authors conducted a retrospective cohort analysis (1957–1986) comparing the mortality of 3,588 electrical capacitor manufacturing workers with known exposure to PCBs with age-, sex-, and calendar time-specific mortality rates for all whites in the United States. Proportional hazards modeling was also performed to examine the association between cumulative PCB exposure and site-specifIc cancer mortality. All-cause mortality (192 deaths observed, 283.3 expected) and total cancer mortality (54 deaths observed, 63.7 expected) were lower than expected. More deaths were observed than expected for malignant melanoma (8 observed, <2.0 expected) and cancer of the brain and nervous system (5 observed, 2.8 expected). The average estimated cumulative dose for the cases of brain cancer (22.9 units) was greater than for other workers (12.9 units), but the 95% confidence intervals around this difference were broad. The risk of malignant melanoma was not related to cumulative PCB exposure. These results provide some evidence of an association between employment at this plant and malignant melanoma and cancer of the brain. The possibility that the results are due to chance, bias, or confounding cannot be excluded.
brain neoplasms; electricity; melanoma; mortality; occupational diseases; polychlorinated bipenyls
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