Accounting, hairdressing among professions linked to increased ovarian cancer risk
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Key takeaways:
- The case-control study showed higher risks with long-term employment in several industries.
- Researchers observed associations between higher ovarian cancer risk and exposure to 18 specific agents.
Certain occupations — including accountancy, hairdressing, sales and sewing — may be associated with increased risk for ovarian cancer, according to study results published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Researchers recommended further research to substantiate the findings.
Rationale and methodology
“Although there have been many studies of the occupational environment and cancer, few have included women or considered female cancer types,” Lisa Leung, a PhD student at Université of Montréal School of Public Health and Université Paris-Saclay, told Healio. “Ovarian cancer is a highly lethal disease and its causes are still not well understood. Thus, we wanted to explore whether occupations and workplace exposures contribute to risk.”
The population-based case-control study included data on lifetime occupational histories between 2011 and 2016 for 491 women with ovarian cancer and 897 women matched based on age and electoral records who served as controls. About one-third of the women in each group were between 55 and 64 years.
Leung and colleagues examined estimated associations of ovarian cancer risk with several occupations and industries.
Findings
Researchers observed increased ORs for those employed 10 years or more as accountants (OR = 2.05; 95% CI, 1.1-3.79), hairdressers/barbers/beauticians and related workers (OR = 3.22; 95% CI, 1.25-8.27), sewers and embroiders (OR = 1.85; 95% CI, 0.77-4.45), and salespeople/shop assistants/demonstrators (OR = 1.45; 95% CI, 0.71-2.96), as well as those in the retail trade (OR = 1.59; 95% CI, 1.05-2.39) and construction industry (OR = 2.79; 95% CI, 0.52-4.83).
Results additionally showed positive associations — with ORs exceeding 1.42 — of high cumulative exposure vs. never having been exposed to 18 agents, including cosmetic talc, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, hair dust, synthetic fibers, polyester fibers, organic dyes and pigments, cellulose, formaldehyde, propellant gases, aliphatic alcohols, ethanol, isopropanol, fluorocarbons, alkanes (C5–C17), mononuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from petroleum, and bleaches.
“Our findings were suggestive of increased ovarian cancer risks for those working in hairdressing, accountancy, sales, sewing and related occupations,” Leung said. “We also observed suggestive associations with some specific occupational exposures and, interestingly, many were linked to hairdressing-related occupations. But it is important to note our results are not conclusive due to imprecision from small numbers of exposed participants, and that many of the exposures were correlated.”
Implications
The findings indicate certain occupations and workplace exposures may warrant investigation with regard to ovarian cancer risk, Leung told Healio.
“More research on female workers and female cancers is needed,” she said. “Pooling data with other studies with similar occupational history information offers an opportunity to generate more evidence in the shorter term in addition to new studies that examine the potentially high-risk occupations and exposures suggested in our study.”
This study is a reminder that “while the lack of representation of women in occupational cancer studies — and indeed, even potential strategies to address this issue — have been long recognized, there is still a need for improvement in studying women’s occupational risks,” Melissa C. Friesen, PhD, an academic researcher at NIH, and Laura E. Beane Freeman, PhD, an environmental epidemiologist at NCI, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
“By excluding women, we miss the opportunity to identify risk factors for female-specific cancers, to evaluate whether sex-specific differences in risk occur, and to study exposures occurring in occupations held primarily by women,” they wrote. “Moreover, it reminds us that there are many opportunities to improve the exposure assessment in those studies to characterize women’s occupational exposures.”
References:
- Friesen MC, et al. Occup Environ Med. 2023;doi:10.1136/oemed-2023-108948.
- Leung L, et al. Occup Environ Med. 2023;doi:10.1136/oemed-2022-108557.
For more information:
Lisa Leung can be reached at lisa.leung222@gmail.com.
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