Incidence of cancer in Norwegian workers potentially exposed to electromagnetic fields.

The risk of cancer was investigated in a cohort of 37,945 male Norwegian electrical workers for whom information on job description was collected from 1960 census data and linked to the 1970 census data. The standardized incidence ratio was calculated for all cancer sites in the overall cohort by comparison with national incidence rates for economically active men at the 1960 census. The standardized incidence ratios for cancers of the breast, pleura (mesothelioma), larynx, and bladder and for soft tissue sarcoma were elevated, while those for non-Hodgkins and Hodgkins lymphoma were lower. The standardized incidence ratio for leukemia for electrical workers with 10 or more economically active years was 1.41. The standardized incidence ratio for brain tumors in this subgroup of electrical workers was 1.14. These results from a large, national, population-based study at the Cancer Registry of Norway give support to previous findings of a possible association between electrical work and the risk of leukemia.