Maintenance work and asbestos-related cancers in the refinery and petrochemical sector

Our plain-English summary of Maintenance work and asbestos-related cancers in the refinery and petrochemical sector, by M.M. Finkelstein (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1999).

The study

• Author: M.M. Finkelstein
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 1999;36(2):326
• Type of article: Letter
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item was a one-page letter to the editor, not a new study. The author reanalysed published figures from a 1999 mortality study of Texaco refinery workers by Divine and colleagues. Those researchers had concluded there was no increased lung cancer risk because the standardized mortality ratios (SMRs, which compare observed deaths with those expected in the general population) were below 100. The author noted that refinery workers as a group have had lower lung cancer risk than the general population, so comparisons should be made within the workforce. Using Divine and colleagues' Table 1, the author subtracted the maintenance workers from the total cohort to form an "unexposed" group. That group had 152 lung cancer deaths against 274 expected (SMR 56). The SMR for maintenance workers was 68 for 0 to 4 years in the maintenance trades, 75 for 5 to 19 years and 89 for 20 or more years. A trend test gave a chi-square of 12.3 on 1 degree of freedom (p less than 0.001). The author concluded that asbestos-exposed refinery and petrochemical workers are at increased risk of lung cancer.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter to the editor presenting the author's reanalysis of published data from another study (Divine et al., 1999)
• Who was studied: Workers in the Texaco refinery mortality study published by Divine and colleagues (1999), split into maintenance workers by years in the maintenance trades and the rest of the cohort
• Exposure: Asbestos exposure in maintenance trades, measured by duration of employment in those trades. These workers were compared with the rest of the cohort, which the author calls "Unexposed workers" and describes as operators with minimal or no asbestos exposure. No fiber types are named.
• Main results:
  • The author's "unexposed" group was made by subtracting maintenance employees from the total cohort. This group had 152 observed and 274 expected lung cancer deaths (SMR 56).
  • Maintenance workers with 0 to 4 years in the trades had 219 observed and 322 expected lung cancer deaths (SMR 68). Those with 5 to 19 years had 91 observed and 121 expected (SMR 75). Those with 20 or more years had 75 observed and 84 expected (SMR 89).
  • The test for trend in these SMRs gave a chi-square value of 12.3 on 1 degree of freedom (p less than 0.001).
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the Divine study adds another piece of evidence that asbestos-exposed workers in the refinery and petrochemical sector are at increased risk of lung cancer.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Lung cancer.

Related studies

• Maintenance work and asbestos-related cancers in the refinery and petrochemical sector — M.M. Finkelstein (1999)
• Mortality among maintenance employees potentially exposed to asbestos in a refinery and petrochemical plant — S.P. Tsai, L.C. Waddell, et al. (1996)
• Asbestos-associated cancers in the Ontario refinery and petrochemical sector — M.M. Finkelstein (1996)
• Mortality and cancer morbidity in a cohort of Canadian petroleum workers — R.J. Lewis, A.R. Schnatter, et al. (2003)
• Asbestos-related cancers in refinery workers in the Australian petroleum industry — R. Gun, N.L. Pratt, et al. (2006)
• Update of mortality and cancer incidence in the Australian petroleum industry cohort — R.T. Gun, N. Pratt, et al. (2006)

Browse more research in American Journal of Industrial Medicine, or return to medical research.