ToxStrategies’ and EpidStrategies’ scientists Deborah Proctor, Julie Panko, Melissa Vincent, Jennifer Bare, Liz Mittal, Stephanie Vivanco, Xiaohui Jiang and Mina Suh recently published a new study assessing lung cancer mortality among aircraft manufacturing workers with long-term, low-level, hexavalent chromium exposure. We reconstructed the exposures of 3,723 aircraft manufacturing workers by job title, including 440 women, and assessed the exposure-response relationship between hexavalent chromium (CrVI) exposure and lung cancer mortality. Elevated lung cancer mortality was observed (Standardized Mortality Ratio [SMR] = 1.39) overall, and especially among women (SMR = 2.61), but no dose-response relationship with CrVI exposure and lung cancer risk was observed. Higher smoking rates in the cohort may explain the increased lung cancer risks. This study provides valuable data on low-concentration CrVI exposures that may be used to inform future quantitative risk assessment.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15459624.2024.2439817#abstract
https://www.aiha.org/publications/journal-of-occupational-andenvironmental-hygiene-joeh