Prioritising action on occupational carcinogens in Europe: a socioeconomic and health impact assessment.

BACKGROUND: Work-related cancer is an important public health issue with a large financial impact on society. The key European legislative instrument is the Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive (2004/37/EC). In preparation for updating the Directive, the European Commission commissioned a study to provide a socioeconomic, health and environmental impact assessment. METHODS: The evaluation was undertaken for 25 preselected hazardous substances or mixtures. Estimates were made of the number of cases of cancer attributable to workplace exposure, both currently and in the future, with and without any regulatory interventions, and these data were used to estimate the financial health costs and benefits. RESULTS: It was estimated that if no action is taken there will be >700 000 attributable cancer deaths over the next 60 years for the substances assessed. However, there are only seven substances where the data suggest a clear benefit in terms of avoided cancer cases from introducing a binding limit at the levels considered. Overall, the costs of the proposed interventions were very high (up to [euro ]34 000 million) and the associated monetised health benefits were mostly less than the compliance costs. CONCLUSIONS: The strongest cases for the introduction of a limit value are for: respirable crystalline silica, hexavalent chromium, and hardwood dust.

Physical impairments and quality of life of colorectal cancer survivors: a case-control study.

The aim of the study is to determine the physical performance, quality of life and fatigue in colorectal cancer survivors compared with healthy controls. Twenty-three colorectal cancer survivors and 22 matched controls were recruited for this case-control study. Fitness level (muscle trunk flexor endurance test, 6-min walk test, chair sit and reach test and flamingo test) was assessed in both groups. Participants completed the European Organization of Research and Treatment of Cancer, the Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30), the Piper Fatigue Scale (PFS) and the International Fitness Scale (IFIS). Significant differences between groups were found for all fitness parameters (P < 0.05). In addition, the anova revealed significant differences in all of the IFIS scores (P < 0.001), PFS (P < 0.01) and functioning scores of the QLQ-C30 (P < 0.05) between colorectal cancer survivors and the control group. The Mann-Whitney U-test showed a significant increase in symptom scores such as fatigue, dyspnoea and diarrhoea in the cancer survivors (P < 0.05). This study shows the existence of perceived and objective deterioration of health-related fitness level, presence of moderate cancer fatigue and reduced perceived quality of life in colorectal cancer survivors compared with healthy controls.

Contribution of solid fuel, gas combustion, or tobacco smoke to indoor air pollutant concentrations in Irish and Scottish homes.

UNLABELLED: There are limited data describing pollutant levels inside homes that burn solid fuel within developed country settings with most studies describing test conditions or the effect of interventions. This study recruited homes in Ireland and Scotland where open combustion processes take place. Open combustion was classified as coal, peat, or wood fuel burning, use of a gas cooker or stove, or where there is at least one resident smoker. Twenty-four-hour data on airborne concentrations of particulate matter<2.5 µm in size (PM2.5), carbon monoxide (CO), endotoxin in inhalable dust and carbon dioxide (CO2), together with 2-3 week averaged concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were collected in 100 houses during the winter and spring of 2009-2010. The geometric mean of the 24-h time-weighted-average (TWA) PM2.5 concentration was highest in homes with resident smokers (99 µg/m3--much higher than the WHO 24-h guidance value of 25 µg/m3). Lower geometric mean 24-h TWA levels were found in homes that burned coal (7 µg/m3) or wood (6 µg/m3) and in homes with gas cookers (7 µg/m3). In peat-burning homes, the average 24-h PM2.5 level recorded was 11 µg/m3. Airborne endotoxin, CO, CO2, and NO2 concentrations were generally within indoor air quality guidance levels. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Little is known about indoor air quality (IAQ) in homes that burn solid or fossil-derived fuels in economically developed countries. Recent legislative changes have moved to improve IAQ at work and in enclosed public places, but there remains a real need to begin the process of quantifying the health burden that arises from indoor air pollution within domestic environments. This study demonstrates that homes in Scotland and Ireland that burn solid fuels or gas for heating and cooking have concentrations of air pollutants generally within guideline levels. Homes where combustion of cigarettes takes place have much poorer air quality.

Single unit oscillations in rat trigeminal nuclei and their control by the sensorimotor cortex.

Oscillatory activity at both the single and multiunit levels has been reported in most central nervous system structures, and is postulated as a key factor in information processing and coding. Rats provide an excellent model for oscillation-based information processing, since tactile perception of the environment is achieved by rhythmic movements of their whiskers and information-related rhythmic activity has been identified in the thalamus and cortex. However, rhythmic activity related to information processing has never been reported in the sensory trigeminal complex (STC), the first brain stem relay station for whisker-related tactile information. In the present work, we demonstrate the existence of neural oscillations in the vibrissae-related neurons of the nuclei principalis (Pr5), oralis (Sp5o), interpolaris (Sp5i) and caudalis (Sp5c). Rhythmic activity was associated with the main task of each nucleus, prominent in nuclei responsible for tactile vibrissae information processing (up to 17% oscillating neurons in Pr5 and 26% in Sp5i) and less conspicuous in those concerned with pain (8% oscillating neurons in Sp5o and in Sp5c). The higher percentage of oscillating neurons and higher frequencies in Sp5i than in Pr5 suggests an active role for rhythmic activity in integrating multivibrissa inputs. Oscillations are generated within the brainstem; data obtained from decorticated animals suggest the existence of a differential cortical control of the rhythmic processes in STC nuclei. Corticofugal activity modifies oscillation frequency and synchronization strength of the rhythmic activity mainly during tactile stimulation of the vibrissae.

Early frequency-dependent information processing and cortical control in the whisker pathway of the rat: electrophysiological study of brainstem nuclei principalis and interpolaris.

The rat facial whiskers form a high-resolution sensory apparatus for tactile information coding and are used by these animals for the exploration and perception of their environment. Previous work on the rat vibrissae system obtained evidence for vibration-based feature extraction by the whiskers, texture classification by the cortical neurons, and "low-pass", "high-pass", and "band-pass" filtering properties in both thalamic and cortical neurons. However, no data are available for frequency-dependent information processing in the brainstem sensory trigeminal complex (STC), the first relay station of the vibrissae pathway. In the present paper, we studied the frequency-dependent processing characteristics of the STC nuclei that mainly project to the thalamus, nuclei principalis, and interpolaris. This is the first time that STC nuclei have been studied together via a wide range of stimulation frequencies (1-40 Hz), four different and complementary metrics, and the same experimental protocol. Moreover, the role of corticofugal projection to these nuclei as well as the influence of input from the whiskers has been analyzed. We show that both nuclei perform frequency-dependent coding of tactile information: low pass and band-pass filtering occurs for the spiking rate in short post-stimuli time intervals, high-pass and band-pass filtering occurs for the spiking rate in long trains of stimuli, and an increase of response latencies and low pass filtering occurs for phase-locked stimuli. These information-processing characteristics are neither imposed by the sensorimotor cortex nor introduced by the afferent fibres. The sensorimotor cortex exerts a distinct modulatory effect on each nucleus.