HAO Jie, JIANG Xia, GU Xiao-na, WU Xiao-yan. Occupational exposure to radon and lung cancer risk in uranium miners: A nested case-control study[J]. Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 2018, 35(6): 485-488. DOI: 10.13213/j.cnki.jeom.2018.17762
Citation: HAO Jie, JIANG Xia, GU Xiao-na, WU Xiao-yan. Occupational exposure to radon and lung cancer risk in uranium miners: A nested case-control study[J]. Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 2018, 35(6): 485-488. DOI: 10.13213/j.cnki.jeom.2018.17762

Occupational exposure to radon and lung cancer risk in uranium miners: A nested case-control study

  • Objective To assess the relationship between lung cancer and occupational exposure to radon in uranium miners.

    Methods By retrospective nested case-control study design, 72 male deaths who had been employed in a uranium mine from 1958 to 2000 and diagnosed as lung cancer by local prefecture-level hospitals were selected as the case group, and 288 uranium miners as the control group. Both groups were matched on age (within 5 years) and sex at a case-to-control ratio of 1:4. Conditional logistic regression method was used to assess the relationship between occupational radon exposure and lung cancer and to calculate the risk coefficient of lung cancer contributed by radonthe increased risk of lung cancer contributed by per working level month (WLM).

    Results The cumulative exposure doses of radon in the case group and the control group were 171.8 WLM and 127.5 WLM respectively. The results of single-factor conditional logistic regression analysis showed that there were no differences in the age for first entering wells, length of underground mining service, and age between the case group and the control group, and smoking (OR=1.88, 95% CI:1.07-3.31) and occupational radon exposure (OR=1.61, 95% CI:1.19-2.16) were the risk factors for lung cancer. The results of multiple conditional logistic regression analysis showed that smoking (OR=2.27, 95% CI:1.26-4.09) and radon exposure (OR=1.62, 95% CI:1.18-2.24) were still the risk factors for lung cancer. The risk coefficient was 0.36% WLM-1 if OR was 1.62, indicating that the occupational radon exposure per WLM increased the risk of death from lung cancer among uranium miners by 0.36%.

    Conclusion Besides smoking, occupational exposure to radon is the major risk factor for lung cancer among uranium miners.

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