Introduction Exposure to metallic compounds may contribute to the etiology of brain cancer; however, few epidemiologic studies have examined this potential association.

Objective To examine occupational exposure to 21 metallic compounds in relation to the risk of glioma and meningioma.

Methods INTEROCC is an international consortium of seven brain cancer case-control studies using a common protocol. Among 1,917 glioma cases, 1,827 meningioma cases, and 5,475 controls in the pooled INTEROCC population, job histories were collected and transformed into histories of exposure to 21 metallic compounds by linkage to the Canadian job-exposure-matrix. Three metrics of exposure were calculated for each agent: ever exposed, duration of exposure, and cumulative exposure. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) for the association between the three metrics of exposure and both glioma and meningioma.

Results There was no evidence of associations between our selected agents and glioma. There were positive associations, with ORs ranging from 1.20 to 2.40, between meningioma and several of the metallic compounds, most notably zinc compounds, lead fumes, chromium VI compounds, soldering fumes, metal oxide fumes, and soldering fumes. Overall, our results were similar to two previous studies based on INTEROCC that examined five of the metallic compounds included in this study, using a modified version of the Finish job-exposure-matrix.

Conclusion Our results are suggestive of positive associations between exposure to metallic compounds, particularly metallic fumes, and meningioma, but not glioma.