Cancer mortality among carbon workers in China: Retrospective cohort study

A retrospective cohort study was performed on a group of 6,635 male workers employed for more than 15 years during the period 1970-1985 in seven factories including the carbon plants and the potroom and carbon department in an aluminium reduction plant. The SMRs for lung cancer and liver cancer among the workers highly exposed to coal tar pitch volatiles (CTPV) were 4.30 (p < 0.01) and 2.25 (p < 0.01), respectively. The SMRs for lung cancer and cancer of the esophagua among moderately CTPV-exposed workers were 1.52 (p > 0.05) and 5.46 (p < 0.01) respectively. Results showed that the numerous deaths from lung cancer were correlated with CTPV in the carbon-producing process in carbon plants.