Source
Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire/DPHD/SEGR/BP17/, F92265 Fontenay-aux-roses, France. maylis.telle-lamberton@isrn.fr
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
All causes and cancer mortality of 58,320 workers employed at the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) between 1946 and 1994 were compared with that of the general population in a retrospective cohort study.
METHODS:
Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR) were computed with reference to the French national population.
RESULTS:
Between 1968 and 1994, 4,809 deaths occurred. A healthy worker effect is observed for men (SMR = 0.57, CI(90%) = [0.56;0.59]) and for women (SMR = 0.72, CI(90%) = [0.67;0.77]). Nine sites of cancer death were found to be in statistically significant deficit among men, none among women. An excess of pleural cancers is observed among men (SMR = 1.79, CI(90%) = [1.27;2.45]) and of malignant melanoma (SMR = 1.50, CI(90%) = [1.04;2.11]). An excess of breast cancer is observed among women on the borderline of significance (SMR = 1.14, CI(90%) = [0.94;1.37]).
CONCLUSIONS:
Excesses observed will have to be related to occupational exposures in the on-going cohort study on French nuclear workers which includes a retrospective exposures assessment.
Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.