Exploring Risks for Reproductive Health and Cancer in Semiconductor Workers

Problem: A retrospective cohort mortality and morbidity study was conducted to investigate the possible association between occupational exposure in semiconductor industry and cancer. Methods: We obtained information of eight companies workers in the semiconductor cohort from the Bureau of Labor Insurance in Taiwan. Workers with cancer were identified after linking with databases of death and cancer registration from the Department of Health of Taiwan. The NIOSH life table analysis system was used to generate person-years-at-risk and the expected numbers of death for 94 categories of death, using Taiwan referent rates. Results: A total of 19,816 male and 27,610 female workers had been employed during 1980- 2000. From data linkage, we found 136 cancer cases and 60 cancer deaths. All malignant neoplasms were also less than expected, indicating a possible healthy worker effect. But there were slight increases of standardized mortality ratios and incidence ratios for cancers of nasopharynx, ovary, and leukemia with 95% confidence interval including 1. Conclusions: Given that workers as generally still young, we recommend that the cohort need to be followed longer in the future