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Objective: We studied associations between pancreatic cancer and occupational exposures to metals, solvents, chemicals, and endotoxin in a cohort of female textile workers in Shanghai, China. To assess the longer-term influences of these agents on pancreatic cancer we extended follow-up of this previously studied cohort. Methods: We utilized a job exposure matrix to assess occupational exposures for 481 pancreatic cancer cases and a randomly selected sub-cohort of 3191 non-cases. We calculated hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals using Cox proportional hazards modeling adapted for the case-cohort design. Results: We observed a statistically significant trend of increasing hazard ratios associated with solvent exposure, but no associations with any of the remaining occupational exposures, including endotoxin and metals. Conclusions: Our findings of increasing risk of pancreatic cancer with solvent exposures are consistent with published literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Associations between stomach and esophageal cancer and exposures to dusts, metals, chemicals, and endotoxin in the workplace are not very well understood, particularly in women., Methods: We followed 267,400 female textile workers in Shanghai, China for cancer incidence from 1989 to 2006. Stomach (n = 1374) and esophageal (n = 190) cancer cases were identified and a comparison subcohort (n = 3187) was randomly selected. Cox proportional hazard modeling was used, adjusting for age and smoking., Results: Increasing stomach cancer risk was observed with increasing duration of synthetic fiber dust exposure (p = 0.03), although the magnitude of effect was small (20 + years: HR = 1.2, 95% CI 1.1-1.4). Trends with endotoxin exposure were modestly inversed for esophageal cancer and increased for stomach cancer, but with little deviation from a null association., Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that long durations of synthetic fiber dust exposure can increase stomach cancer risk in women, but provide limited support for associations with other textile industry exposures., (© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)