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 "This study is the first to show higher prevalences of all cancers
studied, and significantly higher prevalences of non-melanoma skin
cancer compared to a similarly matched U.S. sample population," said
lead study author Eileen McNeely of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of
Public Health in Boston.
Researchers asked 5,366 flight attendants and 2,729 other adults
with similar socioeconomic backgrounds whether they had ever been
diagnosed with cancer.
Compared to the other adults, flight attendants were 51 percent more
likely to develop breast cancer. They also had more than double the
risk of melanoma and more than quadruple the odds of being diagnosed
with other forms of skin cancer.
"Non-melanoma skin cancer among women increased with more years on
the job, suggesting a work-related association," McNeely said by
email.
While these results confirm earlier research linking work as a
flight attendant to an increased risk of certain cancers -
especially breast and skin malignancies - the study wasn't designed
to prove whether or how the job might directly cause tumors.
Researchers also couldn't say whether tumors developed before or
after participants started working as flight attendants. And the
study didn't examine cancer survival rates, only diagnoses.
Scientists have long suspected that flight attendants' cancer risk
might be affected by their exposure to naturally occurring radiation
at high altitudes, shift work, time zone changes that disrupt sleep
cycles, and poor cabin air quality, researchers note in
Environmental Health.
Flight attendants, however, are less likely than the general
population to die of all causes except plane crashes, said Rob
Griffiths, program director of occupational and aviation medicine at
the University of Otago Wellington in New Zealand.
"They are comparatively healthy and wealthy, and more likely to seek
medical care than the general population," Griffiths, who wasn't
involved in the study, said by email. "So cancer detection incidence
is higher and mortality is lower, because they participate in
screening programs and get treated faster."
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A separate study in April involving nearly 6,100 U.S. flight
attendants found no meaningful link between cosmic radiation or
circadian rhythm disruption and several cancers. (http://bit.ly/2yDoqdc)
The lead author of that study, Dr. Lynne Pinkerton of the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati, Ohio,
didn't rule out the possibility that altitude-related radiation
exposure or disrupted sleep cycles might be connected to cancer.
But she noted that higher rates of breast cancer among female flight
attendants might be due to the fact that they had fewer children and
gave birth for the first time later in life than other women.
"Having fewer children and having children later in life are known
risk factors for breast cancer," Pinkerton, who wasn't involved in
the current study, said by email.
Sun exposure, a leading risk factor for skin cancers, might also be
higher for flight attendants because they might spend time in the
sun on layovers, noted Dr. Alessandra Buja, of the University of
Padova in Italy, in an email.
Buja, who wasn't involved in the study, added that the connection
between flight attendant work and cancer rates in the study "may
reflect the effect of flight attendant work exposure," but it could
also be explained by "reproductive factors or sun exposure and only
indirectly associated with this work."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2tBSKPG Environmental Health, online June 25,
2018.
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