US: Pentagon study finds higher cancer rates in military pilots, ground crew

Military pilots have high rates of cancer, and for the first time, a Pentagon study has revealed that the ground crews who fuel, maintain, and launch those aircraft are also becoming sick.

Retired military aviators who had been raising concerns about the number of air and ground crew personnel they knew who had cancer for years had long wanted the data. They were informed that past military investigations had found no evidence that they were more at risk than the American population as a whole, as reported by the Associated Press.

The Pentagon found that air crew members had an 87per centhigher rate of melanoma and a 39 per centhigher rate of thyroid cancer, as well as a 16 per centhigher rate of prostate cancer for men and a 16per centhigher rate of breast cancer for women, in its year-long study of nearly 900,000 service members who flew or worked on military aircraft between 1992 and 2017. The risk of all cancers was 24per centhigher overall among flight crews.

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The study found that while women had a sevenper centhigher breast cancer risk, ground crews had a 19per centhigher rate of brain and nervous system cancers, a 15per centhigher rate of thyroid cancer, and a nineper centhigher rate of kidney or renal cancers. The total rate of all cancers increased by threeper cent.

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Additionally, some good news was reported. Lung cancer rates were much lower among ground and air crews, and air crews also had reduced rates of bladder and colon cancer.

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As observed bythe Pentagon, the latest study was one of the biggest and most comprehensive studies to date. This study looked across all of the services and at both air and ground troops, in contrast to a prior study that just examined Air Force pilots and discovered some increased rates of cancer.

The research found that when people in the crew were diagnosed with cancer, they had a higher chance of surviving than people in the general population. The research suggested that this was because crew members were more likely to be in better health due to their military fitness requirements and were diagnosed with cancer earlier due to regular required medical checkups.

(With inputs from agencies)

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