8909 Chromium Icda N°14

• Abstract This overview considers the occupational carcinogenicity of metallic chromium and trivalent chromium compounds in humans. The evaluations of the potential carcinogenicity of these chemicals by international and national organizations and by individual scientists are unanimous in that the evidence of carcinogenicity is inadequate in humans. For some sources of chromium exposure derived from industries (e.g. ferrochrome industry, manufacture of chrome pigments, boot and shoe manufacture) and for some occupations (e.g. chrome platers, leather tanners, painters) there appears to exist increased risks, but in most epidemiologic studies the available data do not permit discrimination between simultaneous exposure to trivalent and hexavalent chromium compounds. Although the chromium compound that increases the risk of lung cancer and nose and sinonasal cancer has yet to be identified, t h e re is a general agreement that hexavalent species are responsible for these diseases, and that metallic and trivalent species are not. For other cancers no consistent patterns of carcinogenic risk has been demonstrated in workers exposed to chromium compounds.