Assessing occupational carcinogenic risks for health of workers employed at blister copper production enterprise

Abstract

In order to develop ideological grounds for complex assessment of industrial carcinogenic danger, we performed hygienic assessment of contribution made by working environment factors into carcinogenic risks formation for workers employed at blister copper production. The assessment included predictive values of occupational risks. We determined tumor markers levels for occupations with unacceptable levels of carcinogenic risks. We examined mortality caused by malignant neoplasms. It is shown that non-organic arsenic compounds applied in blister copper production are the main factor causing carcinogenic risks. As we calculated individual carcinogenic risks for 25-year working period we found out that total carcinogenic risks for all basic and supplementary occupations in copper-smelting workshops were within the 4th range (more than 1.0 х 10 -3 ). Unacceptable predictive values of carcinogenic risks for 100 % examined occupations appeared already after 5 years of work. We detected excess levels of tumor markers in 73 % of examined workers with occupations characterized with unacceptable values of carcinogenic risks; 19 % of such workers had excess levels of two tumor markers at once. 9 % of examined workers had excess levels of Cyfra 21.1 tumor marker, 14,5 % of workers had high levels of СЕА tumor marker, and 59 % of workers had high levels of NSE tumor marker. Intensive mortality indices for male workers employed at copper-smelting workshops as per all localizations amounted to 153.14, whereas they amounted to only 127.25 per 100,000 people for other population groups. Workers employed at blister copper production had higher intensive mortality indices than other people in terms of such nosologies as malignant neoplasms in respiratory organs and chest (86.78 and 47.72 correspondingly), including lung cancer (71.47 and 43.48 correspondingly. The obtained results will help to work out a system for managing carcinogenic risks which will include regulating and controlling activities, managerial activities, technical and technological measures, financial and economic activities, medical and prevention activities plus rehabilitation activities, as well as information and educational activities.

Keywords

• blister copper production
• occupational individual carcinogenic risk
• mortality caused by malignant neoplasms
• tumor markers
• carcinogenic risk management
• arsenic
• nickel
• lead
• cadmium