Abstract
A number of studies suggest that pilots are at twice the risk of melanoma and keratinocyte skin cancers than the general population, and that they have a raised mortality from melanoma. No conclusive links with in-flight exposure to ionising radiationor circadian rhythm disruption due to the pilots’ shift work were found. Possible over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) may be implicated as pilots may be exposed to higher UV-A levels at cruise altitude compared with those at ground levels. The direct method of making in-flight spectral measurements has been carried out on a limited number of flights, but this technique is challenging; the use of small wearable sensors may be more appropriate but there are a few issues that should be addressed for their use in cockpit measurements. While the spectral response of sensors for erythema effective values usually closely matches the corresponding weighting function, the response of UV-A sensors may not be spectrally flat, which, if not corrected to account for the transmission of the aircraft windshield, could potentially result in large errors. In this paper, the spectral correction method was applied to the UV-A sensor of the Genesis-UV unit to measure UVR exposure of commercial pilots on 312 flights to a range of destinations from four UK airports from September 2016 to August 2017.
Highlights
Meta-analysis studies have shown that commercial pilots have a two-fold higher risk of melanoma and keratinocyte skin cancers than the general population, and that they have a raised mortality from melanoma [1,2,3,4]
GENESIS-UV (GENeration and Extraction System for Individual expoSure) dual-channel electronic data loggers X-2012-10 (Gigahertz-Optik GmbH, Türkenfeld, Germany) with UV-A and erythema effective irradiance sensors were used for measurements inside the cockpits
While the spectral response of the sensors for erythema effective values closely matched the corresponding weighting function, the sensitivity of the UV-A sensor of the Genesis-UV has strong wavelength dependence as shown in Figure 2; it peaks at 325 nm, decreases with increasing wavelengths, and drops below 10% above ~390 nm
Summary
Meta-analysis studies have shown that commercial pilots have a two-fold higher risk of melanoma and keratinocyte skin cancers than the general population, and that they have a raised mortality from melanoma [1,2,3,4]. No conclusive links between levels of in-flight exposure to ionising radiation and skin cancers have been found [3,5]. The nature of pilots’ work includes shift patterns that can contribute to circadian rhythm disruption, though no evidence has been found associating it with skin cancers [3,5]. UVR, on the other hand, is a well-known risk factor for developing skin cancers [7].
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