Lung cancer risk among bakers, pastry cooks and confectionary makers: the SYNERGY study.

Thomas Behrens (1) , Benjamin Kendzia (1) , Tabea Treppmann (1) , Ann Olsson (2, 3) , Karl-Heinz Jöckel (4) , Per Gustavsson (3) , Hermann Pohlabeln (5) , Wolfgang Ahrens (5, 6) , Irene Brüske (7) , Hans-Erich Wichmann (7) , Franco Merletti (8) , Dario Mirabelli (8) , Lorenzo Richiardi (8) , Lorenzo Simonato (9) , David Zaridze (10) , Neonila Szeszenia-Dabrowska (11) , Peter Rudnai (12) , Jolanta Lissowska (13) , Eleonora Fabianova (14) , Adonina Tardón (15) , John Field (16) , Rodica Stanescu Dumitru (17) , Vladimir Bencko (18) , Lenka Foretova (19) , Vladimir Janout (20) , Jack Siemiatycki (21) , Marie-Elise Parent (22) , John Mclaughlin (23) , Paul Demers (23) , Maria Teresa Landi (24) , Neil Caporaso (24) , Hans Kromhout (25) , Roel Vermeulen (25) , Susan Peters (25, 26) , Simone Benhamou (27) , Isabelle Stücker (28, 29) , Florence Guida (28, 29) , Dario Consonni (30) , Bas Bueno-De-Mesquita (31) , Andrea 'T Mannetje (32) , Neil Pearce (33) , Lap Ah Tse (34) , Ignatius Tak-Sun Yu (34) , Nils Plato (3) , P. Boffetta (35, 36) , Kurt Straif (2) , Joachim Schüz (2) , Beate Pesch (1) , Thomas Brüning (1)

1 IPA - Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine of the German Social Accident Insurance
2 CIRC - IARC - Centre International de Recherche contre le Cancer - International Agency for Research on Cancer
3 IMM - The Institute of Environmental Medicine [Stockholm]
4 Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology
5 Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS
6 Institute for Statistics
7 Institute of Epidemiology I
8 Cancer Epidemiology Unit
9 Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health
10 Institute of Carcinogenesis
11 The Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine
12 National Institute of Environmental Health
13 Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology
14 RAPH - Regional Authority of Public Health [Slovaquia]
15 Molecular Epidemiology of Cancer Unit
16 Roy Castle Lung Cancer Research Programme
17 INSP - National Institute of Public Health [Romania]
18 Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology
19 Department of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics
20 Faculty of Medicine
21 CR CHUM - Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal
22 INRS-IAF - Institut Armand Frappier
23 Cancer Care Ontario
24 NCI-NIH - National Cancer Institute [Bethesda]
25 Division of Environmental Epidemiology
26 Western Australian Institute for Medical Research
27 Variabilité Génétique et Maladies Humaines
28 CESP - Centre de recherche en épidémiologie et santé des populations
29 University Paris-Sud
30 Unit of Epidemiology
31 RIVM - National Institute for Public Health and the Environment [Bilthoven]
32 Centre for Public Health Research
33 Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health [London]
34 Division of Occupational and Environmental Health
35 The Tisch Cancer Institute
36 IPRI - International Prevention Research Institute

Some studies have suggested increased lung cancer risks among bakers, however the results overall were inconsistent. The authors studied lung cancer risks among bakers and baking-related occupations in the SYNERGY pooled case-control database from 16 countries. Occupation in a baking-related job was identified from the subjects' job histories. ORs adjusted for log(age), study centre, smoking behaviour and ever employment in a job with known exposure to occupational lung carcinogens were calculated by unconditional logistic regression. Findings were stratified by sex, histological subtype of lung cancer and smoking status. 19 366 cases (15 606 men) and 23 670 control subjects (18 528 men) were included. 473 cases (415 men, 58 women) and 501 controls (437 men, 64 women) had ever worked in baking or a related job. We did not observe an increased risk for men in baking (OR 1.01; 95% CI 0.86 to 1.18). No linear trends were observed for duration of employment. Some results suggested increased lung cancer risks for women, for example, for working as a baker for >30 years and in never-smokers, but after exclusion of one study these increased risks disappeared. The findings from this study do not suggest increased lung cancer risks in baking-related professions.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Thomas Behrens, Benjamin Kendzia, Tabea Treppmann, Ann Olsson, Karl-Heinz Jöckel, et al.. Lung cancer risk among bakers, pastry cooks and confectionary makers: the SYNERGY study.. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2013, 70 (11), pp.810-4. ⟨10.1136/oemed-2013-101469⟩. ⟨pasteur-01130242⟩