Higher Cancer Rate Found for Stewardesses

Airline attendants are nearly twice as likely to get breast cancer as other women, according to Finnish researchers.

But the researchers said they doubt that the unexpected finding is related to the increased radiation in the atmosphere at high altitudes.

Instead, they suggested that there may be something peculiar in the lifestyle of flight attendants, such as diet or chronic jet lag, that might affect hormones.

Flight attendants also tend to delay childbirth or not have children, two factors linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. But that would not explain why the risk doubled, said Dr. Anssi Auvinen, one of the investigators at the Finnish Center for Radiation and Nuclear Safety in Helsinki.

“The point of our study was to assess whether there is an increase or not, and we cannot make inferences regarding the causes,” Auvinen said.

He said it was highly unlikely that radiation exposure was responsible for the increase.

But Dr. Daniel Hoffman, chairman of preventive medicine and public health at George Washington School of Medicine in Washington, said it could not be ruled out.

“There is a wealth of information showing that radiation induces breast cancer, even at fairly low doses,” Hoffman said. “This study is suggestive but needs further work,” such as detailed information about individual radiation exposure.

The study is published in this week’s edition of the British Medical Journal.

Investigators studied medical records of 1,577 female and 187 male airline attendants who had worked for Finnish airlines between 1967 and 1992.

They tallied the number of cancers and compared the totals with the number of cancers expected in the general population. Twenty female flight attendants developed breast cancer, compared to an expected number of fewer than 11, Auvinen said. Airline attendants are exposed to about twice as much radiation in a year compared to the general population.