PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Fanhua Zeng AU - Catherine Lerro AU - Jérôme Lavoué AU - Huang Huang AU - Jack Siemiatycki AU - Nan Zhao AU - Shuangge Ma AU - Nicole C Deziel AU - Melissa C Friesen AU - Robert Udelsman AU - Yawei Zhang TI - Occupational exposure to pesticides and other biocides and risk of thyroid cancer AID - 10.1136/oemed-2016-103931 DP - 2017 Jul 01 TA - Occupational and Environmental Medicine PG - 502--510 VI - 74 IP - 7 4099 - http://oem.bmj.com/content/74/7/502.short 4100 - http://oem.bmj.com/content/74/7/502.full SO - Occup Environ Med2017 Jul 01; 74 AB - Objectives To assess the associations between occupational exposure to biocides and pesticides and risk of thyroid cancer.Methods Using data from a population-based case–control study involving 462 incident thyroid cancer cases and 498 controls in Connecticut collected in 2010–2011, we examined the association with occupational exposure to biocides and pesticides through a job-exposure matrix. We used unconditional logistic regression models to estimate OR and 95% CI, adjusting for potential confounders.Results Individuals who were occupationally ever exposed to biocides had an increased risk of thyroid cancer (OR=1.65, 95% CI 1.16 to 2.35), and the highest risk was observed for the high cumulative probability of exposure (OR=2.18, 95% CI 1.28 to 3.73). The observed associations were similar when we restricted to papillary thyroid cancer and well-differentiated thyroid cancer. Stronger associations were observed for thyroid microcarcinomas (tumour size ≤1 cm). No significant association was observed for occupational exposure to pesticides.Conclusions Our study provides the first evidence linking occupational exposure to biocides and risk of thyroid cancer. The results warrant further investigation.