Related Experiment Videos
Occupational burden of cancer in Korea
Eun-A Kim1, Hye-Eun Lee, Seong-Kyu Kang
1Center for Occupational Disease Research, Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute, KOSHA, Incheon, Korea.
Objectives:
The extent of the occupational cancer burden has rarely been estimated in Korea. The aim of this study is to provide an estimation of the population attributable fraction (PAF) of occupational cancer in Korea.
Methods:
Nine kinds of Group 1 carcinogens addressed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and 7 kinds of cancer were selected for the target carcinogens and diseases, respectively. The prevalence of carcinogen-exposed workers was estimated and correction factors were applied so that the value would be representative of the total population. Data on relative risk (RR) were taken from IARC reports and were compared with the RRs from the studies on Korean workers. The PAF was estimated according to Levin's formula.
Results:
The proportion of the general Korean population exposed to carcinogens was 9.7%. The PAF of total cancer was 1.1% for incident cancer cases and 1.7% for cancer deaths. The PAFs of lung cancer and leukemia were 7.0% and 4.%, respectively. With the RRs reported from Korean studies, the PAF for lung cancer and leukemia were 3.7% and 3.4%, respectively.
Conclusion:
The PAF in this study (1.1%) was lower than that reported in previous studies (2-4%) from developed countries. Considering that only 9 of the 29 kinds of Group 1 carcinogens were included in this study, the PAF might be underestimated. However, because the process of industrialization in Korea differs from that which occurred in other developed countries, 1.1% of the PAF might be appropriate for Korea.
Related Concept Videos
Cancer Survival Analysis
What is Cancer?
Although people have known about cancer for centuries, it was only in 1761 that Giovanni Morgagni of Padua performed a detailed autopsy of patients who died from...
What is Cancer?
Although people have known about cancer for centuries, it was only in 1761 that Giovanni Morgagni of Padua performed a detailed autopsy of patients who died from...
Cancer
Cancer Therapies
However, cancer treatments can pose several challenges, as therapies used to kill cancer cells are generally also toxic to normal cells. Moreover, cancer cells mutate rapidly and can develop resistance to chemical agents or radiation therapy. Besides, all types of cancer cells may not respond to the same therapy. Some cancer cells respond to one...
Cancer Prevention
Some...