Malignant tumours in Swedish dental personnel: a comparative study with the total population as well as with some...

By linking the records between the Swedish census of 1970 and the cancer register for the period 1971-1984 the question was investigated as to whether an increased risk of, in the first hand, tumours of the liver, the kidneys or the nervous system could be found among dental personnel, and if so, whether it could be correlated with age. No significant higher risk could be demonstrated for any of these sites of tumours, neither for dentists, nor for dental nurses, dental technicians, nor for dental personnel collectively in comparison to the risk in the general Swedish population. For dental personnel the SIR value for primary liver tumours was 1.3, 95% CI: 0.6-2.4, for tumours of the kidneys the SIR was 1.0, 95% CI: 0.6-1.5, and for tumours of the nervous system the SIR was 1.1, 95% CI: 0.8-1.6. When these groups of tumours were taken together, a significantly increased risk (p less than was found only for male dentists, where 33 cases were observed against 22 expected. This increased risk does not seem to have any counterpart in any other category of dental personnel, and therefore the significant figures may be interpreted as a chance result. The noticeably increased and decreased risk levels which were found in other sites of tumours for dentists could also be demonstrated in other groups with university education with one exception: haemo-lymphatic malignancies for which male dentists display a significantly lower risk. For all types of malignant tumours of dental personnel there was a nonsignificantly increased risk, the SIR = 1.07, 95% CI: 0.99-1.15.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)