Compared with army and air force veterans in the U.K. and Australia, naval veterans more frequently had lung cancers linked to asbestos exposure, according to results published in Scientific Reports.
“Asbestos-related diseases are still around,” Richard T. Gun, MBBS, of the school of public health at The University of Adelaide in Australia, told Healio. “[Clinicians should] obtain detailed information on possible asbestos exposures on all subjects presenting with lung cancer. For that matter, bear in mind the possibility of asbestos and/or other hazardous dusts as possible causes of interstitial lung disease.”
In this study, Gun and Gerry M. Kendall, BSc, MSc, PhD, of the cancer epidemiology unit at University of Oxford, analyzed data of veterans from the U.K. and Australia who served in the 1950s and 1960s to determine the prevalence of cancer due to asbestos exposure among naval veterans compared with army and air force officers.
The study comprised four individual cohorts, including U.K. participants (n = 6,305; officers: 7.7% navy; 9.7% army; 19.1% air force) and Australian participants (n = 73,43; officers: 9% navy; 24% army; 22% air force) of the British atmospheric nuclear tests that occurred in the 1950s, as well as a U.K. control cohort of civilians and service personnel who served overseas but had not participated in the nuclear testing (n = 2,613; officers: 7.9% navy; 12.1% army; 20.7% air force), and a contemporary cohort of Australian Korean War veterans (n = 5,102).
Mesothelioma occurred more frequently among veterans who served in the navy vs. other military branches, as demonstrated by standardized incidence ratios (SIRs). For instance, in the Australian test participant cohort, SIRs were 2.79 (95% CI, 1.59-4.52) for navy veterans compared with 0.98 (95% CI, 0.12-3.54) for army veterans and 0 for air force veterans. The same pattern was seen across the other cohorts, with SIRs for those in the navy ranging from 1.75 (95% CI, 0.83-2.67) in the Australian Korean War cohort to 2.62 (95% CI, 2.04-3.31) in the U.K. test participant cohort.
Additionally, SIRs for lung cancer were higher among naval personnel than for the other military branches in the Australian test participant cohort (navy SIR =1.5; 95% CI, 1.26-1.77; army SIR = 1.09; 95% CI, 0.78-1.49; air force SIR = 1.04; 95% CI, 0.84-1.28), the U.K. test participant cohort (navy SIR = 1.16; 95% CI, 1.05-1.27; army SIR = 1.02; 95% CI, 0.91-1.14; air force SIR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.86-1.03) and the U.K. control cohort (navy SIR = 1.15; 95% CI, 1.05-1.25; army SIR = 1.01; 95% CI. 0.9-1.13; air force SIR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.86-1.03).
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