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Increasing Awareness and Knowledge of Occupational Cancer

July 2007

A workshop was held on the 27th April 2007 in Hanasaari, Finland entitled "Increasing Awareness and Knowledge of Occupational Cancer".... Dr Fabrizio Giannandrea, IARC summarises the various presentations and the programme.

The Workshop was organized by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) together with the EuroWorksafe project and consisted of presentations of 9 invited experts.

It was attended by 48 participants from 7 different countries (Finland, UK, Italy, France, Poland, Bulgaria and Denmark). The invited experts were asked to provide an overview of relevant studies on occupational cancer burden or to focus on methods and tools that had been used to improve the knowledge on work-related cancer.

The issue of 'Increasing awareness and knowledge of occupational cancer' was connected to the theme day of the World Health Organization, (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), on 28th April 2007.

The Programme was as follows:

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Morning Presentations (9.00 - 12.20) - Chairs: Paolo Boffetta and Kirsti Husgafvel-Pursiainen

2.1 Occupational cancer - a moving target - Paolo Boffetta, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), France

2.2 Cancer attributable to occupation: the HSE project - Lesley Rushton, Health and Safety Executive (HSE), UK

2.3 Exposure to carcinogens in Great Britain - John W. Cherrie, Institute of Occupational Medicine, UK

2.4 Use of cancer registries in occupational cancer research: the NOCCA project - Eero Pukkala, Finnish Cancer Registry, Finland

2.5 The role of biomarkers in risk assessment of occupational cancer - wood dust - Kirsti Husgafvel-Pursiainen, FIOH, Finland

3.0 Afternoon Presentations (13.20 - 15.45) - Chairs: Jorma Rantanen and Irja Laamanen

3.1 Genomics approach in search of biomarkers for occupational cancer: example of asbestos - Sisko Anttila, FIOH, Finland

3.2 Every third cancer can be prevented - Why is it not happening? - Harri Vertio, Cancer Society of Finland, Finland

3.3 EuroWorksafe: European multidisciplinary portal on occupational cancer risks and prevention - Gianni Viano, Softeco, Italy

3.4 Occupational disease burden - a global view - Jorma Rantanen, International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH), Finland

For a fuller description of these talks and presentations click onto the International Labour Office Health and Safety Centres Newsletter July 2007 see www.sheilapantry.com/cis/cis200707.html#FOCUS