Researchers have said that one in 17 British carpenters born in the 1940s will die of asbestos-related lung cancer despite the toxic fire-retarding mineral no longer being seen in general use.

The study in the British Journal of Cancer said the risk is higher than previously thought. Study leader Julian Peto of Cancer Research UK, said the study focused on people who were born in the 1940s as they were the most likely to have been exposed to asbestos while they were in the prime of their life.

This was as carpenters often cut and drilled brown asbestos insulation board with power tools, leading to the inhalation of fibres that can trigger a form of cancer called mesothelioma years later. Such boards were in use till the 1980s.

In the study Peto and colleagues looked at 2,000 people of whom more than 600 had mesothelioma and there were 1,400 healthy people. The researchers wanted to examine UK rates of the disease linked to different jobs and they looked at the risk to workers exposed to asbestos for more than 10 years before the age of 30.

The researchers reported that the overall risk of asbestos-related cancer for carpenters born in the 1940s is about one in 10 as for every case of mesothelioma, asbestos also causes about one case of lung cancer. Two-thirds of all British men and a quarter of women were found to have worked in jobs involving potential asbestos exposure at some time in their lives

A small increased risk was also noted in the case of living with someone who had been exposed to asbestos. In the case of plumbers, electricians and decorators born in the 1940s the risk of developing mesothelioma was estimated at one in 50 and for other construction workers one in 125.

Britain has the highest death rate from mesothelioma in the world and Cancer Research UK said more than 2,100 people were diagnosed with mesothelioma in the UK each year. There were 1,749 deaths in men in 2005 and 288 deaths in women, equivalent to one in 40 of all male cancer deaths below the age of 80.

The researchers said the projected lifetime risk of fatal mesothelioma in all British men born in the 1940s is 0.59%, or about one in 170 of all deaths.

Professor Julian Peto, Cancer Research UK epidemiologist and lead researcher from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Institute of Cancer Research, said, "The UK has the highest death rate from mesothelioma in the world. The risk is highest in people who were exposed to asbestos before age 30. By getting information on all the jobs people had ever done we have shown that the risk in some occupations, particularly in the building industry, is higher than we previously thought."

The study was funded by Cancer Research UK and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).