Operating room nursing and lung cancer risk in a cohort of female registered nurses.
OBJECTIVE
Smoke generated during laser surgery and electrocautery contains respiratory irritants and human carcinogens. Although laboratory and animal studies have demonstrated that this smoke has inflammatory and mutagenic potential, no population-based studies of the health effects of exposure to surgical smoke have been published. We examined the association between duration of employment as an operating room nurse, a proxy measure for surgical smoke exposure, and subsequent lung cancer risk.


METHODS
This study was conducted among 86 747 women in the Nurses' Health Study. Information on the duration of prior operating room employment was collected in 1984, and the women were followed for incident, confirmed lung cancer. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to model the incidence rate ratio of lung cancer for each exposure category using women with no prior operating room employment for comparison. All of the models were adjusted for age, smoking history, passive smoke exposure, fruit and vegetable consumption, and alpha carotene and lycopene intake.


RESULTS
A history of operating room employment was not associated with an increased rate of lung cancer in multivariable analyses [rate ratio (RR) 0.99, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.86-1.15]. In fact, nurses in the highest exposure category, > or =15 years of operating room employment, had a significantly lower rate of lung cancer than nurses with no prior operating room employment (RR 0.58, 95% CI 0.37-0.91), possibly due to confounding by overall health status or residual confounding by smoking history.


CONCLUSIONS
Long-term exposure to surgical smoke, as measured by the duration of operating room employment, does not appear to increase the risk of lung cancer.
Gates
Margaret A
MA
Department of Medicine, Bridham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Channing Laboratory, Third Floor, 181 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. mgates@hsph.harvard.edu
Feskanich
Diane
D
Speizer
Frank E
FE
Hankinson
Susan E
SE
D000328:Adult; D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004564:Electrocoagulation / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D053685:Laser Therapy / Q000009:adverse effects; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009871:Operating Room Nursing; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012307:Risk Factors; D012906:Smoke / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000009:adverse effects*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational; D012906:Smoke