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Occupational Medicine Advance Access originally published online on August 11, 2006
Occupational Medicine 2006 56(7):485-493; doi:10.1093/occmed/kql083
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A meta-analysis of occupational trichloroethylene exposure and multiple myeloma or leukaemia

Dominik D. Alexander, Pamela J. Mink, Jeffrey H. Mandel and Michael A. Kelsh

Exponent–Health Sciences, 185 Hansen Court, Suite 100, Wood Dale, IL 60191, USA

Background Trichloroethylene (TCE) has been widely used as an industrial solvent and degreasing agent.

Aims We conducted a meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies of occupational TCE exposure and multiple myeloma (MM) or leukaemia.

Methods We identified a total of eight cohort or case–control studies that enumerated a TCE-exposed study population and presented relative risk (RR) estimates for MM (n = 7) and/or leukaemia (n = 7). The individual studies included aerospace or aircraft workers (n = 3 studies), workers from a transformer manufacturing plant (n = 1 study) and workers from numerous occupations who, based on biomonitoring or extensive industrial hygiene exposure measurements, were likely exposed to TCE (n = 4). We used random effects models to calculate summary relative risk estimates (SRRE). In addition, we examined heterogeneity across studies and the relative influence of each individual study on the overall meta-analysis.

Results No association was observed for MM (SRRE = 1.05, 95% CI: 0.80–1.38; P value for heterogeneity = 0.94) or leukaemia (SRRE = 1.11, 95% CI: 0.93–1.32; P value for heterogeneity = 0.50), based on TCE-exposed subgroup meta-analyses. Study-specific RR estimates for MM ranged between 0.57 and 1.62. RRs for leukaemia ranged between 1.05 and 1.15 in five studies, while one study reported a 2-fold increased RR and another study reported an inverse association of 0.60. All confidence intervals (CIs) for study-specific estimates included 1.0.

Conclusions The results of this meta-analysis do not support an etiologic association between occupational TCE exposure and risk of MM or leukaemia.

Keywords      Leukaemia; meta-analysis; multiple myeloma; TCE; trichloroethylene

Correspondence to: Dominik Alexander, Exponent–Health Sciences, 185 Hansen Court, Suite 100, Wood Dale, IL 60191, USA. Tel: 6302743230; e-mail: dalexander{at}exponent.com


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