RESEARCH ARTICLE
Biologic Implications from an Epidemiologic Study of Chromate Production Workers
Herman Gibb*, 1, Heather J. Hoffman2, Cary Haver1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 4
First Page: 54
Last Page: 59
Publisher Id: TOEPIJ-4-54
DOI: 10.2174/1874297101104010054
Article History:
Received Date: 06/06/2010Revision Received Date: 28/06/2010
Acceptance Date: 01/07/2010
Electronic publication date: 19/1/2011
Collection year: 2011
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
This analysis of an epidemiologic study of chromate production workers evaluates several variables related to the biologic understanding of chromate-induced lung cancer. Age at hire was found to be negatively associated with lung cancer risk. Reducing exposure was found to have benefits that extended into older age, and the benefits were greater when the reduction began at an earlier age. The same cumulative exposure over a short period of time (30 days) had more effect than if the exposure occurred over 10 years. The greater carcinogenic effect among those exposed at an early working age is consistent with an ability to more efficiently reduce hexavalent chromium intracellularly at younger ages. The greater effect at younger ages may also explain why short-term cumulative hexavalent chromium exposure was found to have more effect than the equivalent cumulative exposure spread over a longer term. The SMR for lung cancer was highest in the decade following cessation of exposure and may reflect the extremely irritating nature of hexavalent chromium.
