Cancer painters

Around the beginning of this century, cancer and illness was associated with excessive use of X-rays. Watch dial painters got mouth cancer from radium in the paint. It soon was realized that radiation has health effects. The measures of energy deposition concepts introduced... 

Painter, R.B. (1978) Inhibition of DNA replicon initiation by 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide, adria-mycin, and ethyleneimine. Cancer Res., 38,4445-4449... 

The risk of cancer among consumers and professional painters from the inhalation of 2-butanonoxime during paint application and drying was considered to be a concern. 

Formaldehyde exposure raises a marginal concern for cancer risk to professional painters (risk estimates of 10 4 to 10 6). 

There is no information on the lethal effects of radium due to acute oral exposure. Many deaths, especially from bone cancer, have occurred in humans following long-term oral exposure to radium-226 and radium-228. As described by Rowland et al. (1978), female radium dial painters in the 1920s who "tipped" their paint brushes with their lips or tongues ingested radium in the process. The dial paint usually contained long-lived radium-226 and shorter-lived radium-228. A toxicity ratio has been developed for these isotopes it has been estimated that radium-228 is about 2.5 times as effective,... 

Some of the radium dial painters ingested amounts of radium sufficient to cause death within a few years of their employment. Martland (1931) described the cases of 18 dial painters who died of cancer at ages 20 to 54 years old. Causes of death were listed as anemia, necrosis of the jaw, and osteogenic sarcoma. The typical period of exposure was about two years. 

In Great Britain, radium dial painters with higher total radium-226 intakes and who were younger than 30 years of age at the start of painting showed an excess of breast cancers (Baverstock and Papworth 1989). External gamma ray exposure to the radioactive paint could also have been the cause of cancer in this population. 

Martland H. 1931. The occurrence of malignancy in radioactive persons A general review of data gathered in the study of the radium dial painters, with special reference to the occurrence of osteogenic sarcoma and the inter-relationship of certain blood diseases. Am J Cancer 15 2435-2515. 

A study was conducted on 977 male painters who had worked for at least 3 months within 10 years prior to 1959 at two U.S. military aircraft maintenance bases where spray painting utilized zinc chromate primer paint. They were followed through 1977. There were 21 deaths due to respiratory cancers, compared with 11.4 expected based on national rates (SMR=184, p<0.01). When compared with national proportionate cancer mortality rates, however, the excess (SMR=146) was not significant (Dalager et al. 1980). 

For both humans and laboratory animals, one cannot currently distinguish between a radiation-induced cancer and a spontaneously occurring cancer (i.e., from an unknown cause). Therefore, statistical methods are used to determine whether radiation exposure is associated with an increase in cancer in a given study population. There have been several epidemiological studies in which definite dose-response relationships have been established for radiation-induced cancers. The best studied populations include atomic bomb survivors, Tinea capitis irradiation patients, ankylosing spondylitis irradiation patients, radium dial painters, radium therapy radium-224 patients, Thorotrast patients, uranium miners, Chernobyl fallout victims, and Mayak plutonium facility workers. 

Zeise, L., Salmon, A. G., McDonald, T, and Painter, P. (1991). Cancer potency estimation. In Risks of Carcinogenesis from Urethane Exposure, Salmon, A. G., and Zeise, L., eds., CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp. 97-112. 

London smog was an object of fascination. A recent study explains artistic depictions of the murk—by painter Claude Monet and a multitude of writers—through the chemistry of coal tar, the source of the dye chemicals that were so important to the early study of environmental cancer. The yellow morning fog, Oscar Wilde s ochre-coloured hay, was tinted by tars in the smoke of household coal furnaces that burned at low temperature. By afternoon, the dark smoke from hotter-burning industrial furnaces would turn the smog to brown or black.3... 

Usually the effects of solvents in paints and varnishes on health are dependent on concentration and exposure time. Adverse health effects may follow exposure to paints, varnishes and flieir solvents at the workplace. The conditions at paint and lacquer manufacturing sites (e.g., manufacturing mefliods, use of exhaust hoods, etc.) are responsible for the levels of evaporated solvents measured in the air. Adverse health effects depend on how the paint is applied, paint properties and working conditions (e.g., increased risk with spray painting). There is sufficient evidence to substantiate the fact that solvents to which painters have been exposed, are responsible for incidences of cancer. However, within paint manufacturing plants, this evidence is inadequate. ... 

As mentioned above, lung cancer is a major concern. Painters, as opposed to those involved in paint manufacture were shown to be at greatest risk for contracting lung can-cer 25,48 jjj there was no evidence of increased risk in persons involved in the manufacture of paints. ... 

Other cancers of the respiratory tract are documented also, e.g., cancer of the nasal cavity, pleural mesothelioma with high incidences in painters and paper-hangers and cancers of the larynx. ... 

A distinct relation between parental occupational exposure and childhood cancer was shown for solvents and paints. High parental exposure resulted in higher incidences of childhood cancers. In the same study, however, generally more cancers were found as a result of parental use of alcohol and tobacco smoke. Childhood leukemia and nervous system cancers, in particular, are the types suspected to be caused by parental exposure to paints and solvents. Kishi et al. described an elevated risk for acute lymphatic leukemia in children of mothers with prenatal exposures to benzene and to paints. In former studies with small numbers of children these tendencies could also be shown, mainly in male painters whose children showed a higher incidence of childhood leukemia and brain tumors. 18.3.4.2.4 Respiratory effects... 

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