A Reevaluation of Selected Mortality Risks in the Updated NCI/NIOSH Acrylonitrile Cohort Study

Abstract Objectives To determine whether the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) recent suggestion of associations between acrylonitrile (AN) exposure and mortality from lung and bladder cancer and pneumonitis is robust to alternative methods of data analysis. Materials and Methods We used the Richardson method to indirectly adjust RRs in relation to AN exposure for potential confounding by smoking and asbestos. We repeated key analyses omitting workers from Plant 4 to account for possible local, historical shipyard-related asbestos exposures. Results Adjustment of lung cancer RRs for confounding by both smoking and asbestos and omitting Plant 4 workers yielded mostly decreased RRs and much less evidence of a positive association with cumulative AN exposure. Conclusions Overall, our reanalysis provided little evidence to support NCI’s suggestion of associations between AN exposure and mortality from lung and bladder cancer and pneumonitis.