Cancer Mortality Among US Workers Employed in Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication

Objective: To evaluate potential cancer risks in the US semiconductor wafer fabrication industry.Methods: A cohort of 100,081 semiconductor workers employed between 1968 and 2002 was studied. Standardized mortality ratios and relative risks (RRs) were estimated.Results: Standardized mortality ratios...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of occupational and environmental medicine 2010-11, Vol.52 (11), p.1082-1097
Main Authors: Boice, John D., Marano, Donald E., Munro, Heather M., Chadda, Bandana K., Signorello, Lisa B., Tarone, Robert E., Blot, William J., McLaughlin, Joseph K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Air Pollutants, Occupational - adverse effects
Air Pollutants, Occupational - analysis
Biological and medical sciences
Cancer
Cause of Death
Chemical and industrial products toxicology. Toxic occupational diseases
Cleanrooms
Cohort Studies
Electronics industry
Environmental Monitoring - methods
Epidemiological Monitoring
Female
General aspects
Humans
Industry
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Mortality
Neoplasms - etiology
Neoplasms - mortality
Occupational Diseases - mortality
Occupational Exposure - adverse effects
Occupational Exposure - analysis
Occupational health
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Registries
Risk
Semiconductors
Toxicology
United States - epidemiology
Vital Statistics
Workers
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objective: To evaluate potential cancer risks in the US semiconductor wafer fabrication industry.Methods: A cohort of 100,081 semiconductor workers employed between 1968 and 2002 was studied. Standardized mortality ratios and relative risks (RRs) were estimated.Results: Standardized mortality ratios were similar and significantly low among fabrication and nonfabrication workers for all causes (0.54 and 0.54) and all cancers (0.74 and 0.72). Internal comparisons also showed similar overall cancer risks among fabrication workers (RR = 0.98), including process equipment operators and process equipment service technicians (OP/EST) employed in cleanrooms (RR = 0.97), compared with nonfabrication workers. Nonsignificantly elevated RRs were observed for a few cancer sites among OP/EST workers, but the numbers of deaths were small and there were no trends of increasing risk with duration of employment.Conclusions: Work in the US semiconductor industry, including semiconductor wafer fabrication in cleanrooms, was not associated with increased cancer mortality overall or mortality from any specific form of cancer. However, due to the young average age of this cohort and its associated relatively low numbers of deaths, regular mortality updates of this semiconductor worker cohort are warranted.
ISSN:1076-2752
1536-5948
DOI:10.1097/JOM.0b013e3181f7e520