Hairdressers, beauticians, and accountants are some job roles that may be associated with a heightened risk of ovarian cancer, finds a case-control study published online in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
Those working in sales, retail, clothing, and construction industries may also be vulnerable, while high cumulative exposure to particular agents, including talcum powder, ammonia, propellant gases, petrol, and bleaches may have an important role, the findings suggest.
Few modifiable risk factors for ovarian cancer have been identified. Environmental factors, including those associated with the workplace, may increase the risk, but relatively few studies have evaluated the occupational hazards faced by women, say the researchers.
And those that have, have often failed to account for potentially influential factors, previous employment history, or have included relatively few participants, so limiting the findings.
To try and avoid these issues, the researchers drew on lifetime employment history from a population-based case-control study, to carry out an exploratory analysis looking at two dimensions of the workplace environment: employment in a particular role or industry; and specific occupational exposures.
They included participants in the PRevention of OVArian Cancer in Quebec (PROVAQ) study, all of whom were aged 18–79, and who had been recruited from seven Montreal hospitals between 2010 and 2016 after being diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer.
In all, 491 of these women meeting the inclusion criteria for the current study were matched for age and electoral roll district with 897 women who didn’t have ovarian cancer.
Information was collected from all the participants on sociodemographic background, medical history, prescribed meds, reproductive history, weight and height, lifestyle factors, and lifetime employment history.
More of the women with ovarian cancer had lower educational attainment, shorter oral contraceptive use, and either no or fewer children than women in the comparison group. These are all potential risk factors for the disease.