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The article focuses on the study which examines the standardized mortality ratio (SMR) analysis of lung cancer to the beryllium worker cohorts. The study used Cox proportional hazards single and multi-variate models to show the effectiveness of SMR. Researchers have found that insufficiency of time worked is very apparent and its medical pattern of the associations of lung cancer revealed less support from the other medical sectors. The experimental findings did not provide satisfying outcomes because of a lack of medical studies on the said respiratory disease.

The article discusses the reanalization of a nested case, which is the control study of beryllium and lung cancer in the U.S. The analysis and study design issues that could have led to the elevated odds ratios obtained in the study have been identified. The data were reanalyzed by using nontransformed exposure metrics instead of log-transformed metrics used in the publication. This study challenges the conclusions made from a large case concerning on beryllium lung cancer. The results of the study are also emphasized in the article.

This analysis is motivated by recent reviews on the carcinogenicity of beryllium by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, and reconsideration by the National Toxicology Program on its classification of the carcinogenicity of beryllium. It reanalyzes data from a 1992 publication of a cohort mortality study conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of workers employed in seven plants producing beryllium in the United States (Ward et al., 1992). That publication reported an increased risk of lung cancer in these workers and concluded that it is most likely due to occupational exposure to beryllium compounds. This present report uses: (1) an adjustment for smoking based on more germane estimates of the association between smoking and mortality from lung cancer; (2) computations of expected lung cancer rates based on alternative comparison populations; and (3) an overall combined estimate of the findings from the individual plants based on meta-analysis. Our findings indicate lower and generally not statistically significant standard mortality ratios that are not compatible with the interpretation of a likely causal association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]