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Background:

Men who were part of an Australian petroleum industry cohort had previously been found to have an excess of lympho-hematopoietic cancer. Occupational benzene exposure is a possible cause of this excess.

Methods:

We conducted a case-control study of lympho-hematopoietic cancer nested within the existing cohort study to examine the role of benzene exposure. Cases identified between 1981 and 1999 (N= 79) were age-matched to 5 control subjects from the cohort. We estimated each subject’s benzene exposure using occupational histories, local site-specific information, and an algorithm using Australian petroleum industry monitoring data.

Results:

Matched analyses showed that the risk of leukemia was increased at cumulative exposures above 2 ppm-years and with intensity of exposure of highest exposed job over 0.8 ppm. Risk increased with higher exposures; for the 13 case-sets with …