TUESDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Occupational exposures in painters are associated with an elevated risk for bladder cancer, a risk that increases with years on the job, according to research published in the August issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Neela Guha, Ph.D., of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 41 studies encompassing more than 2,900 incident cases or deaths from bladder cancer, including two cohort studies, nine record linkage studies, and 30 case-control studies. The researchers pooled data and adjusted for smoking and other occupational exposures. Results were stratified by study design, gender, and study location.

Compared to unexposed subjects, the researchers found that painters had an overall 25 percent increase in bladder cancer risk (based on all 41 studies), a 28 percent increased risk after adjusting for smoking (based on 27 studies), and a 27 percent increased risk after adjusting for other occupational exposures (based on four studies). After the researchers stratified by gender, study design, and study location, the results were still robust. They also found that bladder cancer risk was higher for those employed as a painter for longer periods of time.

"Because several million people are employed as painters worldwide, even a modest increase in the relative risk is remarkable. It is important for cancer control and prevention to design studies with more specific exposure assessment that quantifies individual agents or classes of agents to identify the underlying carcinogenic agents encountered in painting," the authors write.

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