Multiple myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow, the same tissue where benzene metabolites concentrate after occupational exposure. While leukemia remains benzene's most established cancer outcome, occupational research has increasingly identified multiple myeloma as part of benzene's broader impact on blood-forming and immune tissues, with the strongest signals appearing in workers with the highest cumulative exposure.
Claim ApplicationBenzene metabolites accumulate directly in bone marrow, where they damage the hematopoietic stem cells that give rise to plasma cells. Chromosomal abnormalities and disrupted DNA repair mechanisms allow genetic mutations to build in blood-forming cells over time. Benzene also suppresses immune surveillance and alters immune signaling, conditions that allow abnormal plasma cell clones to proliferate without the regulation that would normally contain them.
A large pooled case-control study through the InterLymph consortium, involving over 2,800 multiple myeloma cases, found approximately a 42% increased risk in the highest benzene exposure categories, with some solvent subgroups reaching 63% elevated risk. Researchers concluded that the findings add important evidence for a role of aromatic hydrocarbon solvents in multiple myeloma causation. A separate meta-analysis of benzene-exposed occupational cohorts reported a relative risk of approximately 2.1 in certain high-exposure industrial populations.
Railroad workers accumulate benzene exposure through diesel exhaust in enclosed locomotive cabs and rail yards, fuel handling operations, engine maintenance, and solvent use in poorly ventilated facilities across decades of employment.
A multiple myeloma diagnosis following a railroad career may be connected to years of occupational benzene exposure, and the InterLymph findings give affected workers a substantial evidentiary foundation. ELG Law has spent 35 years building railroad toxic exposure cases under FELA. Reach out to ELG Law today to find out whether you qualify for compensation.