Occupational benzene exposure and risk of kidney and bladder cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Benzene is recognized as leukemogenic. However, the association between it and solid cancers has been the subject of less investigation. We aim to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the association between occupational exposure to benzene and the risk of urinary tract cancer, including kidney and bladder.

We included 41 cohort and case-control studies listed in the most recent International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monograph on benzene exposure and the result of a literature review to identify more recent studies. Forest plots of relative risk (RR) were constructed for kidney, bladder, and urinary tract cancer overall. A random-effects model was used to address heterogeneity between studies. Stratified analyses were conducted to explore effect modification.

Our findings revealed an association between exposure to occupational benzene and kidney and unspecified urinary tract cancers (RR = 1.20, 95% confidence interval = 1.03-1.39), and an association of borderline statistical significance with bladder cancer (RR = 1.07, 95% confidence interval = 0.97-1.18). Publication bias was excluded for both kidney ( P  = 0.809) and bladder cancer ( P  = 0.748). Stratification analysis according to the selected study characteristics showed no difference except regarding the industry for kidney cancer ( P  < 0.000), with a stronger association in the chemical industry. An analysis by exposure level did not reveal any trend for kidney cancer, whereas there was a trend ( P  = 0.01) for bladder cancer.

Our study found an association between occupational benzene exposure and kidney cancer and a dose-effect association between benzene exposure and bladder cancer.