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NICKEL AND NICKEL COMPOUNDS
CAS No: 744-02-0 (nickel)
I. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES (From HSDB, 1998)
Molecular weight
59 (nickel)
Boiling point 2730°C
Melting point 1455°C
Vapor pressure
not applicable
Air concentration conversion not applicable
II.
HEALTH ASSESSMENT VALUES
Unit Risk Factor: 2.6 E-4 (µg/m 3 ) -1
Slope Factor: 9.1 E-1 (mg/kg-day) -1
[Calculated from Ontario nickel refinery sinter plant worker lung cancer mortality data (Chovil et al.,
1981; Roberts et al., 1984; Muir et al., 1985), using excess relative risk estimates (CDHS, 1991)].
III.
CARCINOGENIC EFFECTS
Human Studies
Epidemiologic studies of the carcinogenic effects of nickel generally center around cohort studies of
refinery workers which have found increased risk of lung cancer and nasal sinus cancer. While other
types of studies have been done, cohort studies of nickel refinery workers warrant special consideration
for use in quantitative risk assessment in view of the high cancer risks detected and the availability of at
least some exposure information. There are many studies of welders, for example, but exposure data
are limited and the increase in lung cancer risks may have been more attributable to chromium than to
nickel (Stern, 1983). A comprehensive quantitative risk analysis was undertaken by the US
Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) for the 1986 Health Assessment Document (US EPA,
1986). The following sections review the lung cancer findings for the cohort studies used in the US
EPA risk assessment, and their subsequent follow-up by the International Committee on Nickel
Carcinogenesis in Man (ICNCM). These studies also report increased risk of nasal cancer. However,
the excess number of lung cancers were generally much greater than the excess numbers of nasal
cancers.
Enterline and Marsh (1982) studied a West Virginia cohort consisting of 1,855 workers employed by
the International Nickel Company (INCO) at a nickel refinery and alloy manufacturing plant in
Huntington, West Virginia. Cohort members had at least one year service prior to 1948 when the
calcining operations ceased. The cohort was followed to the end of 1977. Among the subset of 266
men that worked in the nickel refinery there were 113 deaths, eight of which were from lung cancer.
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