Non-smoking women who are exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace may have a higher risk of developing lung cancer than those who live with a smoking spouse, a German study has found.
Non-smokers who live with a smoker partner, have twice the risk of developing lung cancer as those who live with a partner who does not smoke, the research found. But women who work with smokers have almost three times the risk compared to those who work in a smoke-free workplace.
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Some careers more risky Researchers from the Institute of Radiation Hygiene in Neuherberg, Germany, interviewed 234 women diagnosed with lung cancer and 535 women without cancer about their passive exposure to tobacco smoke at home and at work.
Although a few of the women reported that they were former, light smokers, none reported having smoked more than 400 cigarettes in their lifetime.
The researchers found that women who worked in smoky offices were almost three times as likely as those whose workplaces were smoke-free to develop lung cancer.
Women with husbands that smoked, were less than twice as likely as those who lived with non-smoking partners to be diagnosed with lung cancer.
Furthermore, the researchers found that women who worked for more than 10 years in an environment where they were exposed to substances linked to lung cancer, were twice as likely as women in other careers to develop lung cancer.
More exposure at work The study's findings support previous study results, the researchers report in the latest International Journal of Cancer.
As an explanation as to why exposure to smoke at work may be worse for non-smokers than exposure to smoke at home, the researcher report that the study did not measure how many people smoked at the workplace, only how much time study participants spent in the smoke-filled workplace.
They theorise that it is possible that more people at work smoke, while at home if there is only one person that smokes, the exposure to smoke is much less.
The researchers also note that the risks of lung cancer in non-smoking women from home and workplace smoke exposure are probably as applicable to non-smoking men. – (Health24)
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