Cancer mortality in a cohort of male agricultural workers from northern Italy.

Cancer mortality in a cohort of 36,579 Italian male agricultural workers (Province of Forlì, 1969-1993) was compared with that of the rest of male population using the ratio of age-standardized (Europe) mortality rates (ASR) with the 95% confidence interval (CI). The cohort yielded 707,496.3 person-years with 3684 cancer deaths. Total ASR ratio was 0.85 (95% CI = 0.81-0.90). A significant excess mortality was observed only for gastric cancer (1.25; 1.13-1.39). Reduction in total cancer mortality was restricted to farm owners (0.83; 0.79-0.88), whereas excess gastric cancer mortality involved both farm owners (1.23; 1.11-1.37) and farm workers (1.32; 1.10-1.58). ASR ratio for gastric cancer decreased from 1.58 (1.34-1.86) in 1969-1976 to 0.97 (0.80-1.19) in 1985-1993. In conclusion, the only positive finding in this cohort of male agricultural workers was a generalized but declining excess mortality from gastric cancer.