Skip Navigation


American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on June 26, 2009
American Journal of Epidemiology 2009 170(4):501-506; doi:10.1093/aje/kwp153
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
170/4/501    most recent
kwp153v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Collins, J. J.
Right arrow Articles by Bodnar, C. M.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Collins, J. J.
Right arrow Articles by Bodnar, C. M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

American Journal of Epidemiology © 2009 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Mortality Rates Among Trichlorophenol Workers With Exposure to 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin

James J. Collins, Kenneth Bodner, Lesa L. Aylward, Michael Wilken and Catherine M. Bodnar

Correspondence to Dr. James J. Collins, Epidemiology Department, The Dow Chemical Company, 1803 Building, Midland, MI 48674 (e-mail: jjcollins{at}dow.com).

Received for publication February 9, 2009. Accepted for publication May 11, 2009.

The authors examined 1,615 workers exposed to dioxins in trichlorophenol production in Midland, Michigan, to determine if there were increased mortality rates from exposure. Historical dioxin levels were estimated by a serum survey of workers. Vital status was followed from 1942 to 2003, and cause-specific death rates and trends with exposure were evaluated. All cancers combined (standardized mortality ratio (SMR) = 1.0, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.8, 1.1), lung cancers (SMR = 0.7, 95% CI: 0.5, 0.9), and nonmalignant respiratory disease (SMR = 0.8, 95% CI: 0.6, 1.0) were at or below expected levels. Observed deaths for leukemia (SMR = 1.9, 95% CI: 1.0, 3.2), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (SMR = 1.3, 95% CI: 0.6, 2.5), diabetes (SMR = 1.1, 95% CI: 0.6, 1.8), and ischemic heart disease (SMR = 1.1, 95% CI: 0.9, 1.2) were slightly greater than expected. No trend was observed with exposure for these causes of death. However, for 4 deaths of soft tissue sarcoma (SMR = 4.1, 95% CI: 1.1, 10.5), the mortality rates increased with exposure. The small number of deaths and the uncertainty in both diagnosis and nosology coding make interpretation of this finding tenuous. With the exception of soft tissue sarcoma, the authors found little evidence of increased disease risk from exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin.

dioxins; neoplasms; phenols; sarcoma; tetrachlorodibenzodioxin

Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer; SMR, standardized mortality ratio; 2,4,5-T, 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid; TCDD, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin; TCP, 2,4,5-trichlorophenol


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.