PMR: proportionate mortality ratio; CI: confidence intervals.
Proportionate Mortality Ratio (PMR) was calculated for all respiratory, lung, larynx, and bladder cancer mortality.
The measure of effect was the proportionate mortality ratio (PMR), using all the other deaths in the United States as the comparison group.
A cross-sectional mortality study among employees of 17 PVC fabricators found a statistically significantly elevated risk of breast cancer mortality among white female workers (proportionate mortality ratio: 1.37) [ 44], consistent with an earlier report from the same cohort [ 45], though there were only 44 breast cancer deaths in this population.
Hauptmann et al. (2009) conducted a case-control study based on over 6000 embalmers (NCI embalm-ers cohort) who died between 1960 and 1985 and were included in proportionate mortality ratio (PMR) studies by Hayes et al. (1990) and Walrath and Fraumeni (1983 , 1984.
Among the occupations listed by the U.S. Census industry code, coal mining is the highest risk job associated with asthma and COPD death, with a proportionate mortality ratio of 1.98 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.84 2.12, adjusted for age, sex, and race), compared with the second highest risk job of trucking service of 1.29 (95% CI, 1.22 1.37) (NIOSH 2003).
However, the underlying sample of death certificates evaluated in this analysis demonstrated no excess of myeloid leukemias: the 29 myeloid leukemias reported in this study generated a proportionate mortality ratio (PMR) of 1.08 (95%% CI 0.70 1.56), and the subset of 20 acute myeloid leukemias generated a PMR of 1.16 (0.71–1.79) [ 68].
An increased risk for SNC was found in a large-scale Danish study (Standardized Proportionate Incidence Ratio - SPIR = 2.3, 95% CI: 1.3-4.0), with elevated risk among workers exposed to both wood-dust and formaldehyde (SPIR = 5.0, 95% CI: 0.5-13.4), amongmoderatelyatexposedosed to formaldehyde, but probably not to wood dust (SPIR = 3.0; 95% CI: 1.4-5.7).
A systematic review by Pelucchi et al (2006b) estimated a pooled RR for cohort studies of 1.34 (95% CI 1.25 1.45); from case control studies the pooled RR was 1.41 (95% CI 1.18 1.67) and for proportionate mortality ratio (PMR) studies it was 1.24 (95% CI 1.05 1.47).
To do so, we first calculated the proportionate likelihood-ratio support (PLRS) and the proportionate decay index support (PIDS) provided by each gene for each node in the well-established phylogeny.
