Coke oven emissions.

Abstract

Before 1950, numerous case reports linked employment in coke production with cancer of the skin, urinary bladder, and respiratory tract. Since then, several cohort studies conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Sweden have reported an increased risk of lung cancer in humans exposed to coke-oven emissions. Smoking was accounted for in some of these studies and was not found to be a significant confounding factor. A large cohort study of 59,000 steel workers published in 1969 reported that lung-cancer risk increased with increasing duration or intensity of exposure to coke oven fumes. Several studies of coking-plant workers reported an increased risk of kidney cancer. An excess of cancer at other tissue sites (prostate, large intestine, and pancreas) was reported in no more than one study for each site (IARC 1984, 1987).