Adenocarcinoma of the nasal cavity and sinuses in England and Wales

Abstract

Acheson, E. D., Cowdell, R. H., and Rang, Elizabeth (1972).Brit. J. industr. Med.,29, 21-30. Adenocarcinoma of the nasal cavity and sinuses in England and Wales. A survey of nasal adenocarcinoma in England and Wales (excluding the Oxford region) is described. Where possible, occupational details were obtained and the histological material on the basis of which the diagnosis had been made was reassessed. A total of 107 patients with adenocarcinoma (80 men and 27 women) and 110 matched control cases of nasal cancer of other histological types (85 men and 25 women) were accepted for analysis. The material was classified according to occupation and the distribution compared with that of the population of England and Wales in 1961. Thirty-four of the adenocarcinoma patients (including one woman) and nine patients in the control group had at some stage of their career worked with wood—the majority in the furniture industry. In addition to providing abundant further evidence of the association between nasal adenocarcinoma and work in the furniture industry the evidence suggests that a smaller but nevertheless material risk of developing other histological types of nasal cancer may exist for workers in the industry. It is probable that certain woodworkers outside the furniture industry are also at risk although the risk is almost certainly very much less than in the furniture industry. An excess of nasal cancer patients who had been leather workers (usually in the boot and shoe making and repairing industries) was also found.