[Documentation problems for occupationally related neoplastic diseases]

The author suggests procedures which can improve the process of identifying an occupational background of neoplastic diseases, bearing in mind a low number of reported cases of occupational cancer in Poland and a concurrent lack of justification (on the basis of data included in a notification from) for some of them. Controversy over diagnosis of neoplasms induced by ionizing radiation is also highlighted. The improved certification of work-related neoplastic diseases must involve each phase of an occupational disease diagnosis: clinical diagnosis with complete and correct medical history, morphological confirmation of the diagnosis, indispensable in the case of cancer, with identification of the primary site of the cancer, identification of causal factor and the exposure size, and occupational disease notification. The author also indicated shortcomings of an occupational disease notification form in regard to neoplastic diseases and suggested its modification.