Occupational exposures and risk of acoustic neuroma.

[thanhclub69]

Occup Environ Med. 2010 Nov;67(11):766-71. Epub 2010 Jun 27.
Occupational exposures and risk of acoustic neuroma.
Prochazka M, Feychting M, Ahlbom A, Edwards CG, Nise G, Plato N, Schwartzbaum JA, Forssén UM.
SourceInstitute of Environmental Medicine (IMM), Unit of Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, PO Box 210, SE-171 77, Stockholm, Sweden. michaela.prochazka@ki.se
AbstractOBJECTIVES: Acoustic neuroma is a benign tumour accounting for approximately 6-10% of all intracranial tumours and occurs mainly in patients aged ≥50 years. Our aim was to investigate a wide range of occupational exposures, individual occupational titles and socioeconomic status (SES) as potential risk factors for acoustic neuroma.METHODS: We conducted a population-based case-control study of 793 acoustic neuroma cases identified through the Swedish Cancer Registry and 101,762 randomly selected controls. Information on SES and occupation was obtained from censuses and linked to job-exposure matrices. Logistic regression was used to estimate ORs and calculate 95% CIs.RESULTS: An increased OR was seen for mercury exposure and lt;10 years before the reference year (OR 2.9; 95% CI 1.2 to 6.8), and a more modest association for benzene exposure (OR 1.8; 95% CI: 1.0 to 3.2) ≥10 years before the reference year. We observed a threefold increased risk for females working as tailors and dressmakers ≥10 years before the reference year, and a more than threefold significantly elevated OR for those working as truck and conveyor operators and lt;10 years before the reference year. We found no convincing evidence that SES is related to disease development.CONCLUSION: We observed an increased risk of acoustic neuroma associated with occupational exposure to mercury, benzene and textile dust. Men working as truck and conveyor operators and lt;10 years before the reference year had the highest increased risk of acoustic neuroma, but it is unclear what in those occupations might contribute to disease development. Our study also suggested an association between acoustic neuroma and being a class teacher or policeman. However, these findings should be further investigated to exclude the possibility of detection bias.
PMID: 20581419 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Shahid]

A number of occupations have been associated with various health conditions and acoustic neuroma is also one of them. This study comes up with the association between occupational exposure to mercury, benzene and textile dust and acoustic neuroma. Men working as truck and conveyor operators were also at the highest increased risk of the acoustic neuroma.

[jjosemadam]

So Acoustic Neuroma is an occupational illness right?

[iceiscool]

Not necessarily. Because the exact causes of Acoustic Neuroma is yet to be finalized by researchers. Studies does show that working people who are exposed to certain descriptions may contribute to the symptoms. The fact that Acoustic Neuroma symptoms can take years and even decades to develop often leaves doctors puzzled at the exact nature of this disorder.