Primary liver cancer among women in laundry and dry-cleaning work in Denmark.

Tetrachloroethylene has been the most commonly used solvent in dry cleaning in Denmark since the late 1950s. A cohort of laundry and dry-cleaning workers was identified from the Danish Occupational Cancer Register for the study of cancer incidence of persons exposed to tetrachloroethylene. The Register includes cancer incidence data for a 10-year period for 8567 women and 2033 men employed in laundry and dry-cleaning in 1970. A significant excess risk was found for primary liver cancer among the women, with 7 observed and 2.1 expected cases (standardized incidence ratio 3.4, 95% confidence interval 1.4-7.0). No case of primary liver cancer was observed among the men, for whom the expected value was 1.1. The excess risk of primary liver cancer among the women is unlikely to be explained exclusively by excess alcohol consumption.