From:

Ah, come on.  If you read what I said, I said I had not seen much cancer in
histotechs, I think that is hardly being alarming.
Patsy 

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	RSRICHMOND@aol.com [mailto:RSRICHMOND@aol.com]
		Sent:	Thursday, August 09, 2001 7:11 AM
		To:	HistoNet@pathology.swmed.edu
		Subject:	Re: Information desired

		Patsy Ruegg writes about histotechnologists and other
technologists with 
		leukemias, lymphomas, and other cancers.

		Anecdotal information in this area is worse than useless -
it alarms people 
		without providing any needed information. Remember that at
least a third of 
		us will eventually get cancer.

		What is needed is a registry of histotechnology workers that
would track 
		their medical histories, at least to the extent of obtaining
and analyzing 
		death certificates. The AMA does this for physicians, and
useful data has 
		been obtained that way - for example, excessive chronic
myelocytic leukemia 
		in old time radiologists. (Pathologists as far as I know do
not have a 
		different cancer experience from other physicians.)

		Histotechnologists probably get more aromatic (xylene,
toluene) exposure and 
		less formaldehyde exposure than pathologists. It would be
interesting to find 
		out if histotechnologists have more chronic myelocytic
leukemia and 
		myeloproliferative disorders than other medical
technologists do, since these 
		diseases are known to be related to aromatic solvent
exposure.

		Unfortunately, the fact that so many histology workers are
uncertified and 
		transient would make a registry of this sort extremely
difficult to put 
		together. Particularly since it's probably the marginal
workers in the field 
		who get the most solvent exposure.

		Bob Richmond
		Samurai Pathologist
		Knoxville TN


 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

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