Researchers from the United States and the Netherlands have reported that long-term exposure to formaldehyde in the funeral industry increases the risk of mortality from myeloid leukemia. The details of this study were published early online on November 20, 2009 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.[1]

Formaldehyde is a chemical that is widely used in industrial plants as a preservative or disinfectant. It is also used by embalmers in the funeral industry. Formaldehyde has been classified as a carcinogen because of its association with nasopharyngeal cancer. Furthermore, it has been shown that the risk of leukemia increases as peak exposure to formaldehyde increases.

A previous study from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reported that industrial workers who are exposed to formaldehyde may be at an increased risk of dying from blood and lymphohematopoietic malignancies, particularly myeloid leukemia but also Hodgkin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma. After a follow-up of over 40 years, these researchers found a statistically significant association between peak formaldehyde exposure and death from all blood and lymphatic cancers combined. Workers with the highest peak exposures were 37% more likely to die from lymphohematopoietic malignancies than those with the lowest level of peak exposures. Furthermore, the risk of death from myeloid leukemia was 78% higher among workers with the highest peak exposure to formaldehyde compared with those with the lowest peak exposures.

The current study involved 216 funeral workers who had died of brain tumors or lymphohematopoietic malignancies and 265 control subjects. They found that death from myeloid leukemia increased with increasing years of embalming experience. There was an almost fourfold increased risk of death from myeloid leukemia among persons who performed embalming for more than 34 years. There was a threefold risk of death from myeloid leukemia in persons performing more than 3,068 embalming procedures. There was also a threefold risk for those estimated to have exposures exceeding 9,253 parts per million-hours. However, they did not find a statistically increased risk for mortality from brain tumors or other lymphohematopoietic malignancies.

Comments: These data are in accordance with the previous NCI study, except they did not detect the increased risk of death from other hematologic malignancies.

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