Occupational exposures and risk of stomach and esophageal cancers: update of a cohort of female textile workers in Shanghai, China

Abstract

Background: Associations between stomach and esophageal cancer and exposures to dusts, metals, chemicals, and endotoxin in the workplace are not very well understood, particularly in women.

Methods: We followed 267,400 female textile workers in Shanghai, China for cancer incidence from 1989 to 2006. Stomach (n = 1374) and esophageal (n = 190) cancer cases were identified and a comparison subcohort (n = 3187) was randomly selected. Cox proportional hazard modeling was used, adjusting for age and smoking.

Results: Increasing stomach cancer risk was observed with increasing duration of synthetic fiber dust exposure (p = 0.03), although the magnitude of effect was small (20 + years: HR = 1.2, 95% CI 1.1-1.4). Trends with endotoxin exposure were modestly inversed for esophageal cancer and increased for stomach cancer, but with little deviation from a null association.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that long durations of synthetic fiber dust exposure can increase stomach cancer risk in women, but provide limited support for associations with other textile industry exposures.

Keywords: China; cancer; cohort; endotoxin; textiles.