Occupational exposure to lead compounds and human cancer

本研究旨在调查癌症（特别是胃癌、肺癌、肾癌和中枢神经系统癌症）与铅化合物的职业接触之间是否存在联系。尽管铅化合物在过去50年中得到广泛使用，但关于铅化合物使用和应用中的职业暴露的已发表队列研究很少。自20世纪80年代末以来，澳大利亚铅化合物的使用有所减少，但澳大利亚和世界铅产量有所增加。澳大利亚是世界上最大的铅生产国。全世界从事铅作业的工人的确切人数尚不清楚，但可能有200多万工人，其中许多人在发展中国家，这些国家对铅接触的控制不能令人满意，职业接触限值比发达国家高得多。因此，暴露于铅化合物（特别是无机铅）的癌症风险的证据将对许多澳大利亚和国际工人产生影响。这对澳大利亚社区环境污染的健康风险评估也很重要。在我们的研究中，我们将审查新南威尔士州、维多利亚州和南澳州约8,000名铅工人的州政府存档记录，他们参加了铅化合物暴露调查，并在20世纪70年代、80年代和90年代进行了血液测试，这是当时政府铅法规的一部分。然后，我们将这些工人的详细信息与国家癌症和死亡登记数据相匹配，以计算癌症发病率。这应该涉及足够数量的工作人员，使我们能够对癌症风险和铅化合物暴露进行全面的健康评估。

This study aims to investigate whether there is a link between cancer (in particular cancer of the stomach, lung, kidney and central nervous system) and occupational exposure to lead compounds. There are only a few published cohort studies available on occupational exposures in use and applications of lead compounds, despite the widespread use of these compounds in the past 50 years. Since the late 1980s the use of lead compounds in Australia has decreased, but Australian and world lead production has increased. Australia is the world's biggest producer of lead. The precise number of lead workers worldwide is unknown but there are likely to be more than 2 million workers of which many are in developing countries where control of lead exposure is unsatisfactory and occupational exposure limits are considerably higher than in developed countries. Evidence for or against cancer risk with exposure to lead compounds , in particular inorganic lead, will therefore have implications for many Australian and international workers. This is also important for health risk assessment for environmental contamination in the Australian community. In our study we will review the state government archived records of about 8,000 lead workers in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, who took part in lead compound exposure surveys and had blood tests in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, as part of government lead regulations in force at the time. We will then match the details of these workers against the National Cancer and Death registry data to calculate cancer rates. This should involve a sufficient number of workers to enable us to undertake a comprehensive health evaluation of cancer risk and exposure to lead compounds.