Occupation and cancer of the lower urinary tract

Abstract

Lifetime occupation histories were elicited from 461 persons with transitional or squamous-cell carcinoma of the lower urinary tract, 94% of whom had a bladder tumor. This was a sample of all such persons newly diagnosed in a designated area in eastern Massachusetts during a recent 18-month period. A sample of 485 persons from the population of the entire study area provided comparable histories and serves as a control group. Occupations were classified according to two schemes developed for this study. Among men, excess risk of lower urinary tract cancer was found in 5 of 8 occupation categories where this was suspected a priori: dyestuffs, rubber, leather and leather products, and paint and organic chemicals. Although suspected, excess risk was not confirmed for 3 categories: printing, petroleum, and chemicals other than organic. The relative risks for men ever employed in the rubber industry (1.63) and in the leather industry (2.25) are statistically significant, p < 0.05. In absolute terms, the 5 risk categories account annually for 7.3 cases of lower urinary tract cancer per 100,000 men aged 20–89; this is about 18% of male bladder cancer. Among women, the comparable figures are 0.8 cases and 6% of the disease. None of the associations of bladder cancer with occupation results from any indirect association with cigarette smoking. Although requiring cautious interpretation, the data suggest increased risk in 2 occupation groups not previously suspected: cooks and kitchen workers and clerical workers.