Cancer and occupation: status and needs of epidemiologic research

In the United States about 15% of cancer in men and 5% of cancer in women is probably due to occupational exposures. Yet, among the populations actually exposed, occupational cancer is a major health hazard. Further, occupational carcinogenesis should be studied because of it scientific interest and the likely generalizability of findings to non-occupational exposures. The alert clinician remains the most important source of leads to occupational cancer. When groups of cases occur, particularly cases of rare tumors among relatively young persons, an occupational exposure should be suspect. A reasonably detailed occupation history should be included in every medical record. Formal evaluation, measurement of risk and identification of specific hazards is usually done by epidemiologic methods. Several approaches to the improvement of these methods and, possibly, to disease control are presented.