Flight crews ‘face higher risks of breast cancer’

WORKING as a flight attendant may expose women to risks that significantly increase their chances of developing breast cancer, researchers said yesterday.

The association is compatible with the effects of cosmic radiation which bombards planes at high altitude.

But other factors such as jetlag, engine exhaust gases and ozone may also play a part, said the scientists.

The research is not the first to show an increased incidence of breast cancer among female flight crews.

However, the Icelandic scientists believe theirs is the first study to account for individual reproductive factors age at first childbirth and number of children.

They showed women with five or more years of employment before 1971 were five times more likely to develop breast cancer than those with less cabin crew experience.

The period coincided with a time when travel by jet became routine.

The long lag time before developing breast cancer was consistent with the disease being induced by ionising radiation.

Other studies have linked both breast and skin cancer in flight crews to occupational hazard.

Suspicion has fallen on neutron and gamma rays from space that are a recognised risk for anyone spending a lot of time in the air.

Europe and North America were the main destinations for the 1,532 female flight attendants who took part in the study, 35 of whom developed breast cancer.

Dr Vilhjalmur Rafnsson and colleagues from the University of Iceland in Reykyavic led another study published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine which suggested factors such as physical make-up, skin type and behaviour cannot alone account for the higher skin cancer rates in air crews.

It found an increased risk of malignant skin cancer among both male and female cabin crew.