FRIDAY, Oct. 28, 2005 (HealthDay News) -- People who work in plants manufacturing semiconductors and storage media like CDs and DVDs can be exposed to a wide range of potentially hazardous substances, two new U.S. studies found.
The two studies found no definite health risks to workers, but possible links between certain types of jobs and specific cancers warrant further study, the researchers said.
The first study, led by researchers at Harvard University, followed the health of 125,000 workers at three IBM plants between 1965 and 1999.
Researchers estimated the workers' occupational exposure to hazardous substances such as solvents, metals and radiation. Relatively high exposures to those substances was identified in jobs such as semiconductor fabrication, disc manufacturing, research and development, and equipment maintenance.
The second study, this time by researchers at the University of Alabama, assessed death risks among employees in various work groups.
They found that the overall death rate was 30 percent to 40 percent lower than that of the general population. This likely reflects the workers' above-average education, income and access to medical care, the study authors noted.
Risks for death from cancer and other major diseases among these employees were also lower than expected. Overall, there was, "no conclusive evidence that any form of cancer was associated casually with employment," the authors wrote.
However, the Alabama team did find that people in certain work groups were at an increased risk of certain kinds of cancer. For example, equipment maintenance workers at one semiconductor plant were at increased rates of central nervous system cancers, and employees in the facilities/laboratories at a storage device facility faced an increased rate of prostate cancer. Certain groups of women workers, particularly those with long-term exposure, were also at increased risk of ovarian cancer, the researchers noted.
More information
The U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has more about work and cancer.
