Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Nickel Exposure and Respiratory Cancer Among Inhabitants of Galanta District

2006; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 17; Issue: Suppl Linguagem: Inglês

10.1097/00001648-200611001-00816

1531-5487

Jarmila Korcova,

Occupational and environmental lung diseases

P-179 Abstract: Nickel is categorized by IARC as category 1 of carcinogenicity to humans. Lung cancer, cancer of nasal and paranasal cavities as well as cancer of larynx have been reported as related to nickel exposure. Through 1963–1992 there were a large nickel refinery operated in town Sered, southwest of Slovak Republic, posing the local environment and inhabitants (close to 100 000 in the district of Galanta) to possible health hazard. The production of factory was up to 2500 metric tons of nickel annually. Such an operation may pose a significant health hazard for the early 100 000 inhabitants in the Galanta district. Because of inconsistent monitoring, little is known about environmental exposure in surrounding of the factory due to lack on consistent monitoring in past. Our exposure scenario was based on published literature making exceeded nickel concentration in water, air or agricultural products as exclusive criteria for selecting a settlement to be exposed. Five settlements were assigned as exposed out of 36 in district. Cancer incidence was measured using data form district hospital oncology department for time period of 1988–2000. This time period allows for inclusion of lag time into discussion. We calculated standardised incidence ratios (SIR) for al cancers, lung cancer, nasal cavity and paranasal cavity cancer as well as for laryngeal cancer. The results will be presented in paper; a slightly elevated, but not statistically significant SIR was observed for all cancers with values of 1.044 (0.96–1.14) and 1.022 (0.93–1.12) for males and females, respectively. The major weaknesses are clearly in ecologic fallacy, lack of individual data on exposure and on important confounding factors (smoking). We plan to conduct a retrospective occupational cohort study, which would allow for more precise exposure classification.