期刊名称：The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
印刷版ISSN：2008-6520
电子版ISSN：2008-6814
出版年度：2018
卷号：9
期号：3
页码：157-159
DOI：10.15171/ijoem.2018.1356
出版社：National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Health Organization
摘要：We read with interest the article onthe measurement of lung cancertumor markers in a groupof workers exposed to respirable syntheticvitreous fiber (SVF) and dust, recentlypublished in the IJOEM.1 The authors reporton the relationship between exposureto respirable SVF and serum levels of twobiomarkers implicated in lung cancer, suggestingthat elevations in these biomarkerssupport a relationship between SVF exposureand lung cancer. However, severalmethodological and interpretational issuesin their evaluation call the authors' conclusionsinto question. For example, theauthors excluded smokers only from thestudy's control group, thus any effects ofsmoking would differentially influence anystatistical comparisons made between thecases and controls. Moreover, the authors'basic two-sample statistical comparisonsdid not enable adjustment for the potentialconfounding factors including known riskfactors for cancer such as age, alcohol use,and family history. In the Introduction oftheir paper, the authors also grossly misinterpretedthe overwhelmingly negativescientific literature as providing evidenceof a positive association between exposureto SVF and several lung diseases includinglung cancer and pleural mesothelioma.
Loading...
