Retrospective mortality study among employees occupationally exposed to toner.

Objective: This cohort study examined the effects of occupational exposure to toner, a particulate material with widespread use in today's society, on mortality.

Methods: The study included 33,671 employees of a xerographic company employed between 1960 and 1982 as manufacturing workers or customer service engineers. Vital status was tracked through 1999. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated using the US population for comparison.

Results: All-cause SMRs for toner-exposed populations were 0.65 and 0.84 for White men and women, respectively, and 0.37 and 0.74 for non-White men and women, respectively. SMRs for all cancers, lung cancer, respiratory disease, and cardiovascular disease in toner-exposed men were lower than 1.0.

Conclusions: Results are consistent with general mortality patterns among healthy working populations. There was no evidence that toner exposure increases the risk of all-cause mortality or cause-specific mortality for the 23 categories of death analyzed.