Gender differences and lung cancer risk in occupational chefs: analyzing more than 350,000 chefs in Taiwan, 1984–2011

OBJECTIVES: Cooking oil fumes (COFs) contain many carcinogens. We investigated the association between COFs and incidence risk of any cancer and lung cancer in chefs. METHODS: We identified Chinese food chefs and non-Chinese food chefs from Taiwan’s national database of certified chefs in 1984–2007. Of them, 379,275 had not been diagnosed as having any cancer before chef certification. We followed them in Taiwan’s Cancer Registry Database (1979–2010) and Taiwan’s National Death Statistics Database (1985–2011) for any newly diagnosed cancer or lung cancer. RESULTS: 378,126 and 379,215 chefs were included for risk analysis of cancer and lung cancer, respectively. 6099 chefs developed cancer and 339 developed lung cancer over the follow-up periods of 4,183,550 and 4,220,163 person-years, respectively. Compared to non-Chinese food chefs, the adjusted IRR of cancer for Chinese food chefs was 1.69 (95% CI 1.51–1.89). For lung cancer, the risk was significantly higher among Chinese food chefs who had been certified for more than 5 years (adjusted IRR 2.12, 95% CI 1.32–3.40). This increased risk was pronounced in female chefs (adjusted IRR 4.73, 95% CI 1.74–12.86). CONCLUSIONS: Chinese food chefs had an increased risk of cancer and lung cancer, particularly in females. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00420-018-1358-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.