Cpl Si Longworth RLC
UK soldiers Photo courtesy of
People who have served in the Armed Forces do not have an increased risk of leukemia or lymphoma, according to research published in Cancer Epidemiology.
Researchers analyzed the long-term risks of developing leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in veterans living in Scotland.
At a mean 30 years of follow-up, there were no significant differences in the risk of the aforementioned malignancies between veterans and non-veterans in Scotland.
This retrospective study included 56,205 veterans and 172,741 non-veterans.
The veterans’ earliest date of entering service was January 1960, and the latest date of leaving service was December 2012.
At a mean follow-up of 29.3 years, 294 (0.52%) veterans and 974 (0.56%) non-veterans were diagnosed with leukemia, HL, or NHL.
There were 125 (0.22%) cases of leukemia in veterans and 365 (0.21%) in non-veterans. There were 59 (0.10%) cases of HL in veterans and 182 (0.11%) in non-veterans. And there were 144 (0.26%) cases of NHL in veterans and 538 (0.31%) in non-veterans.
There was no significant difference in the risk of all 3 cancer types between the veterans and non-veterans. The unadjusted hazard ratio (HR) was 0.96 (P=0.541).
There were no significant differences in an adjusted analysis either. (The analysis was adjusted for regional deprivation, which takes into account information on income, employment, health, education, housing, crime, and access to services.)
The adjusted HR was 1.03 (P=0.773) for leukemias, 1.19 (P=0.272) for HL, and 0.86 (P=0.110) for NHL.
“This is an important study which provides reassurance that military service in the last 50 years does not increase people’s risk of leukemia overall,” said study author Beverly Bergman, PhD, of the University of Glasgow in the UK.
“The Armed Forces comply with all relevant health and safety legislation and regulations, and we can now see that their risk is no different from the general population.”
