Cancer in furniture workers.

A follow-up study of 5371 men who had worked in 1 or more of 9 furniture factories in Buckinghamshire for an average of 19 years up to 1968 is reported. The incidence of nasal adenocarcinoma in furniture workers taken as a whole was found to be about one hundred times that expected in the local population, and a significant relationship was found between increasing incidence of the tumour and increasing dustiness of work within the cohort. Similar comparisons with the local population produced no evidence for an increased risk of cancer of any other site in the furniture workers including bronchial cancer and malignant disease of the reticulo endothelial system. However, when comparisons were made between men exposed to different amounts of dust within the industry the incidence and mortality of bronchial cancer increased with increasing dustiness of work the latter trend but not the former being statistically significant. This trend is not due to differences in smoking habits among the groups of men. No trends of increasing incidence or mortality of other sites of cancer with increasing dustiness of work were found.