Respiratory cancers are the most frequent occupational cancers: cancers attributable to asbestos, benzene, ionizing radiation and wood dust alone cover nearly 90% of compensated occupational cancers. But very little data is available to quantify occupational exposure to these respiratory carcinogens.
A study published in the latest Weekly epidemiological bulletin (BEH) therefore assessed the proportion of French employees who had been exposed to respiratory carcinogens and identified the most exposed occupational groups, for prevention purposes.
This study tells us that in 2010 in France, approximately 2 million employees (approximately 1.7 million men and 300,000 women) were exposed to at least one carcinogen of the respiratory system and 22% of them had at least one double exposure.
“In men, the construction, automobile repair and transport and warehousing sectors are predominant and mainly involve chemical agents, in women, the exposure is concentrated in the health sector where they are present ionizing radiation in addition to chemical agents such as cytostatics used to fight cancer and formaldehyde used as a disinfectant and preservative “ emphasize the researchers.
The latter point out that information on protection (presence, use, suitable or not) must not be neglected in order to ensure better prevention.
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