Lack of a protective effect of cotton dust on risk of lung cancer: evidence from two population-based case-control studies

BMC Cancer

Jack Siemiatycki³  Marie-Claude Rousseau²  Jérôme Lavoué¹  Krista Yorita Christensen⁴ 

[1]Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

[2]INRS − Institut Armand-Frappier, Laval, QC, Canada

[3]Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

[4]Environmental Epidemiology and Population Health Research Group, University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), Tour Saint-Antoine, 850 St. Denis Street, Montreal H2X 0A9, QC, Canada

关键词: Case-control studies;    Occupational exposure;    Lung neoplasms;    Wool dust;    Cotton dust;   

Others  :  1161048
DOI  :  10.1186/s12885-015-1206-0

 received in 2014-04-30, accepted in 2015-03-17,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in North America. Exposure to cotton dust has previously been reported to decrease the risk of lung cancer.

Methods

We used data from two large case-control studies conducted in Montreal from 1979-1986 (Study 1) and 1996-2002 (Study 2) respectively, to examine the association between occupational exposure to cotton dust and risk of lung cancer. Cases were diagnosed with incident histologically-confirmed lung cancer (857 in Study 1, 1203 in Study 2). Population controls were randomly selected from electoral lists and frequency-matched to cases by age and sex (533 in Study 1, 1513 in Study 2). Interviews for the two studies used a virtually identical questionnaire to obtain lifetime occupational and smoking history, and several lifestyle covariates. Each participant’s lifetime occupational history was reviewed by experts to assess exposure to a number of occupational agents, including cotton dust. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated by unconditional logistic regression, adjusting for potential confounders.

Results

The lifetime prevalence of exposure to cotton dust was approximately 10%-15% in both studies combined, with some variation by study and by sex. Overall there was no decreased risk of lung cancer among subjects exposed to cotton dust. Rather, among all subjects there was a suggestion of slightly increased risk associated with any lifetime exposure to cotton dust (OR = 1.2, 95% CI: 1.0-1.5). This risk appeared to be concentrated among cases of adenocarcinoma (OR = 1.6, 95% CI: 1.2-2.2), and among moderate and heavy smokers (OR = 1.3, 95% CI: 1.0-1.7). There was no association when restricting to cases of either squamous cell or small cell cancer, or among never smokers and light smokers. An analogous examination of subjects exposed to wool dust revealed neither increased nor decreased risks of lung cancer.

Conclusions

There was no evidence that cotton dust exposure decreased risks of lung cancer.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Yorita Christensen et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]Canadian Cancer Society/National Cancer Institute of Canada. Canadian Cancer Statistics 2008. Toronto, Canada; 2008.
• [2]American Cancer Society: Cancer Facts & Figures 2010. American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA; 2010.
• [3]Boffetta P, Trichopoulos D: Cancer of the lung, larynx and pleura. In Textbook of cancer epidemiology. Edited by Adami HO, Hunter D, Trichopoulos D. Oxford University Press, New York; 2002:248-80.
• [4]Siemiatycki J, Richardson L, Straif K, Latreille B, Lakhani R, Campbell S, et al.: Listing occupational carcinogens; see errata. Environ Health Perspect 2005, 113(2):A89.
• [5]Christiani DC, Wang XR, Pan LD, Zhang HX, Sun BX, Dai H, et al.: Longitudinal changes in pulmonary function and respiratory symptoms in cotton textile workers. A 15-yr follow-up study. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2001, 163(4):847-53.
• [6]Astrakianakis G, Seixas NS, Ray R, Camp JE, Gao DL, Feng Z, et al.: Lung cancer risk among female textile workers exposed to endotoxin. J Natl Cancer Inst 2007, 99(5):357-64.
• [7]Henderson V, Enterline PE: An unusual mortality experience in cotton textile workers. J Occup Med 1973, 15(9):717-9.
• [8]Hodgson JT, Jones RD: Mortality of workers in the British cotton industry in 1968-1984. Scand J Work Environ Health 1990, 16(2):113-20.
• [9]Merchant JA, Ortmeyer C: Mortality of employees of two cotton mills in North Carolina. Chest 1981, 79(4 Suppl):6S-11.
• [10]Wernli KJ, Ray RM, Gao DL, Thomas DB, Checkoway H: Cancer among women textile workers in Shanghai, China: overall incidence patterns, 1989-1998. Am J Ind Med 2003, 44(6):595-9.
• [11]Levin LI, Gao YT, Blot WJ, Zheng W, Fraumeni JF Jr: Decreased risk of lung cancer in the cotton textile industry of Shanghai. Cancer Res 1987, 47(21):5777-81.
• [12]Tse LA, Yu ITS, Qiu H, Au JSK, Wang XR: Occupational risks and lung cancer burden for Chinese men: a population-based case-referent study. Cancer Causes Control 2012, 23(1):121-31.
• [13]Szeszenia-Dabrowska N, Wilczynska U, Strzelecka A, Sobala W: Mortality in the cotton industry workers: results of a cohort study. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 1999, 12(2):143-58.
• [14]Fritschi L, Lakhani R, Nadon L: Cancer incidence in textile manufacturing workers in Australia. J Occup Health 2004, 46(6):493-6.
• [15]Kuzmickiene I, Didziapetris R, Stukonis M: Cancer incidence in the workers cohort of textile manufacturing factory in Alytus, Lithuania. J Occup Environ Med 2004, 46(2):147-53.
• [16]Mastrangelo G, Fadda E, Rylander R, Milan G, Fedeli U, Rossi di Schio M, et al.: Lung and other cancer site mortality in a cohort of Italian cotton mill workers. Occup Environ Med 2008, 65(10):697-700.
• [17]Lenters V, Basinas I, Beane-Freeman L, Boffetta P, Checkoway H, Coggon D, et al.: Endotoxin exposure and lung cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the published literature on agriculture and cotton textile workers. Cancer Causes Control 2010, 21(4):523-55.
• [18]Pance A, Reisser D, Jeannin JF: Antitumoral effects of lipid A: preclinical and clinical studies. J Investig Med 2002, 50(3):173-8.
• [19]Reisser D, Pance A, Jeannin JF: Mechanisms of the antitumoral effect of lipid A. Bioessays 2002, 24(3):284-9.
• [20]Simpson JC, Niven RM, Pickering CA, Oldham LA, Fletcher AM, Francis HC: Comparative personal exposures to organic dusts and endotoxin. Ann Occup Hyg 1999, 43(2):107-15.
• [21]Gerin M, Siemiatycki J, Kemper H, Begin D: Obtaining occupational exposure histories in epidemiologic case-control studies. J Occup Med 1985, 27(6):420-6.
• [22]Ramanakumar AV, Parent ME, Menzies D, Siemiatycki J: Risk of lung cancer following nonmalignant respiratory conditions: evidence from two case-control studies in Montreal. Canada Lung Cancer 2006, 53(1):5-12.
• [23]Siemiatycki J: Risk factors for cancer in the workplace. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida; 1991.
• [24]Siemiatycki J, Wacholder S, Richardson L, Dewar R, Gerin M: Discovering carcinogens in the occupational environment. Methods of data collection and analysis of a large case-referent monitoring system. Scand J Work Environ Health 1987, 13(6):486-92.
• [25]Minister of Manpower and Immigration: Canadian Classification and Dictionary of Occupations 1971. Vol 1. Classification and Definitions. Information Canada, Ottawa; 1974.
• [26]Dominion Bureau of Statistics: Standard Industrial Classification Manual. Information Canada, Ottawa; 1970.
• [27]Statistics Canada: Standard Industrial Classification - Companies and Enterprises (SIC-C) 1980. Statistics Canada, Ottawa; 1980.
• [28]Gerin M, Siemiatycki J: The occupational questionnaire in retrospective epidemiologic studies: Recent approaches in community-based studies. Appl Occup Environ Hyg 1991, 6(6):495-501.
• [29]Parent ME, Rousseau MC, Boffetta P, Cohen A, Siemiatycki J: Exposure to diesel and gasoline engine emissions and the risk of lung cancer. Am J Epidemiol 2007, 165(1):53-62.
• [30]Wacholder S, Silverman DT, McLaughlin JK, Mandel JS: Selection of controls in case-control studies. II. Types of controls. Am J Epidemiol 1992, 135(9):1029-41.
• [31]Leffondre K, Abrahamowicz M, Xiao Y, Siemiatycki J: Modelling smoking history using a comprehensive smoking index: application to lung cancer. Stat Med 2006, 25(24):4132-46.
• [32]El-Zein M, Parent ME, Nicolau B, Koushik A, Siemiatycki J, Rousseau MC: Body mass index, lifetime smoking intensity, and lung cancer risk. Int J Cancer 2013, 133(7):1721-31.
• [33]Québec’s clothing and textile industries: the difficult path ahead. In: Economic fiscal and budget studies. vol. 1(4). Quebec: Ministère des Finances; 2005.
• [34]Koskela RS, Klockars M, Jarvinen E: Mortality and disability among cotton mill workers. Br J Ind Med 1990, 47(6):384-91.
• [35]Peters S, Kromhout H, Olsson AC, Wichmann H-E, Bruske I, Consonni D, et al.: Occupational exposure to organic dust increases lung cancer risk in the general population. Thorax 2012, 67(2):111-6.
• [36]Applebaum KM, Ray RM, Astrakianakis G, Gao DL, Thomas DB, Christiani DC, et al.: Evidence of a paradoxical relationship between endotoxin and lung cancer after accounting for left truncation in a study of Chinese female textile workers. Occup Environ Med 2013, 70(10):709-15.
• [37]Checkoway H, Lundin JI, Costello S, Ray R, Li W, Eisen EA, et al.: Possible pro-carcinogenic association of endotoxin on lung cancer among Shanghai women textile workers. Br J Cancer 2014, 111(3):603-7.
• [38]Marchand G, Lalonde M, Beaudet Y, Boivin G, Villeneuve S, Pepin C: Documentation of the endotoxins present in the ambient air of cotton fiber textile mills in Quebec. J Environ Monit 2007, 9(8):869-76.
• [39]Su HJ, Chen HL, Huang CF, Lin CY, Li FC, Milton DK: Airborne fungi and endotoxin concentrations in different areas within textile plants in Taiwan: a 3-year study. Environ Res 2002, 89(1):58-65.