Occupational Exposure to Silica and Lung Cancer: Pooled Analysis of Two Case-Control Studies in Montreal, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Respirable crystalline silica is a highly prevalent occupational exposure and a recognized lung carcinogen. Most previous studies have focused on selected high-exposure occupational groups. This study examines the relationship between occupational exposure to silica and lung cancer in an occupationally diverse male population. METHODS: Two large population-based case-control studies of lung cancer were conducted in Montreal, one in 1979-1986 (857 cases, 533 population controls, 1,349 cancer controls) and the second in 1996-2001 (738 cases and 899 controls). Interviews provided descriptive lifetime job histories, smoking histories, and other information. Industrial hygienists translated job histories into histories of exposure to a host of occupational substances, including silica. Relative risk was estimated, adjusting for several potential confounders, including smoking. RESULTS: The odds ratio for substantial exposure to silica was 1.67 (95% confidence interval, 1.21-2.31) and for any exposure was 1.31 (95% confidence interval, 1.08-1.59). Joint effects between silica and smoking were between additive and multiplicative, perhaps closer to the latter. In this population, it is estimated that approximately 3% of lung cancers were attributable to substantial silica exposure. CONCLUSIONS: The carcinogenicity of inhaled crystalline silica was observed in a population with a wide variety of exposure circumstances. IMPACT: The finding of carcinogenicity across a wide range of occupations complements prior studies of specific high-exposure occupations. This suggests that the burden of cancer induced by silica may be much greater than previously thought.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".