Shanghai textile workers’ risk of pancreatic cancer linked to solvent exposure

This is a news brief written for the Advanced Technical Communication in Public Health course at the University of Washington.

Long-term exposure to solvents increases the risk of pancreatic cancer in a large cohort of female textile workers in Shanghai, according to a study published by an international group of researchers this week in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The results better define cancer risk for textile workers and may influence guidelines for workplace exposure. Pancreatic cancer is the 10th highest mortality causing cancer among women in less-developed nations. The work serves as a follow-up to a 2006 case-cohort study and confirms previous findings of an etiological relationship between solvent exposure and pancreatic cancer in these workers. Researchers were unable to find relationships to any other previously linked workplace exposures such as metals, lubricants, inks, resins, and pesticides. Their findings also failed to confirm any association between pancreatic cancer and a bacterial contaminant commonly found in organic materials like cotton, called endotoxin; the previous study had indicated a possible protective effect of endotoxin exposure against the disease.