Mortality in a combined cohort of uranium enrichment workers

Objective

To examine the patterns of cause-specific mortality and relationship between internal exposure to uranium and specific causes in a pooled cohort of 29,303 workers employed at three former uranium enrichment facilities in the United States with follow-up through 2011.

Methods

Cause-specific standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) for the full cohort were calculated with the U.S. population as referent. Internal comparison of the dose-response relation between selected outcomes and estimated organ doses was evaluated using regression models.

Results

External comparison with the U.S. population showed significantly lower SMRs in most diseases in the pooled cohort. Internal comparison showed positive associations of absorbed organ doses with multiple myeloma, and to a lesser degree with kidney cancer.

Conclusion

In general, these gaseous diffusion plant workers had significantly lower SMRs than the U.S. population. The internal comparison however, showed associations between internal organ doses and diseases associated with uranium exposure in previous studies. Am. J. Ind. Med. Published 2016. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

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