Research Shows Higher Cancer Risk for Flight Crews

["Susan McElrath" <smhp@bellsouth.net>]

Research Shows Higher Cancer Risk for Flight Crews 

Tue October 21, 2003 07:02 PM ET 

LONDON (Reuters) - New research released Wednesday showed airline flight

crews had a higher than normal rate of skin and breast cancer.

Researchers at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik found that flight

attendants who had worked for five or more years were more likely to

develop breast cancer.



And in a separate study, scientists at the Stockholm Center for Public

Health in Sweden uncovered an increase in malignant melanoma, the

deadliest form of skin cancer, among both male and female cabin crew.



Previous studies have also suggested that skin cancer and possibly acute

myeloid leukemia were more common in male pilots and that female flight

attendants had a raised risk of breast cancer.



"There is mounting evidence that cabin crew appear to have an increased

risk of malignant melanoma and breast cancer," Dr Elizabeth Whelan of

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States said

in a commentary on the research studies published in the journal

Occupational and Environmental Medicine.



Whelan said higher doses of cosmic ionizing radiation were found at

higher altitudes. Doses that flight crews are exposed to have been

increasing over time as longer flights at higher altitudes have become

more common.



But she said more research was needed to determine whether the increased

cancer risk is due to work or other lifestyle factors. Further studies

being done in the European Union and the United States might provide

more answers, Whelan added.



http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=3661024





Susan McElrath

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