A case control study of gastric cancer in coal miners was conducted. Forty six cases of gastric cancer and 138 comparisons drawn from four NIOSH coal miner cohorts were used. Three series of age matched miners were developed for each gastric cancer case: miners who died from lung cancer, miners who died from cancer other than gastric or lung cancer, and miners who died from noncancer, nonaccident causes. Odds ratios (ORs) were used as a measure of the relative risk of gastric cancer. ORs for gastric cancer were computed as a function of years of exposure to coal mine dust, cigarette smoking, or history of coal workers' pneumoconiosis. Coal mine dust exposure itself was a slightly elevated gastric cancer risk. When the coal mine dust exposure risk was examined under control by cigarette smoking status, the risk was statistically increased in miners with prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke. Coal workers' pneumoconiosis was not found to be a gastric cancer risk. The author concludes that among United States coal miners, an occupational gastric cancer risk due to exposure to coal mine dust exists, but only when a life style feature, cigarette smoking, is also present. When prolonged coal mine dust exposure in conjunction with prolonged cigarette smoking occurs, the risk of gastric cancer is statistically significant.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.