Bronchial Carcinoma in Printing Workers

¹ The Medical Department (Head: Professor E. Ask-Upmark) of The Royal Academic Hospital of Upsala, Sweden.

1. Bronchial carcinoma has increased during recent decades. This increased incidence is believed to be real more than apparent. No satisfying explanation has so far been offered although the increased consumption of cigarettes may or may not be of importance.

2. One out of several outstanding differences between life of today and life of 50 years ago is the increased amount of printed material available, not least so with regard to the number, the size and the editions of the newspapers, as well as to the opportunity to read and to get "hot news," almost smelling with printing ink.

3. If the exposure to printing ink should be of importance one ought to expect an increased incidence of pulmonary carcinoma in printing workers. The material of bronchial carcinoma in Stockholm (as published by Wiklund from other points of view) was accordingly analyzed.

4. During a certain period of time 125 cases of bronchial carcinoma were registered, eight of whom were represented by printing workers (= 6.4 per cent)During the same period of time there were 132,000 men above 40, 1500 of whom were printing workers (= 1.14 0.95 per cent). The difference is conclusive from statistical point of view and will be still more overwhelming if it is remembered that only about 500 printing workers were busy with the printing ink and that, as far as could be elicited, all eight carcinomas belonged to this group.

5. Attention is called to the experiments of Steinbrück in 1929. Mice were painted on the neck with printing ink and malignant tumors was the result (in five cases carcinoma of the lung and of the skin, in three cases neoplastic tissue in the lymphatic nodes, the liver and the spleen).

6. Just as the mining workers of Schneeberg and Joachimsthal, as the laborers of the chromium industry and as those exposed to asbestos the printing workers exposed to printing ink should be considered as particularly susceptible to bronchial carcinoma. Screening by means of x-ray films should be performed of the lungs of printing workers above 40 at least once every second year and more often if any symptoms should appear.