An Update on Occupation and Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Background: Our aim was to identify gaps and limitations in the current literature and to make recommendations for future research required to address these. Materials and Methods: We reviewed occupational exposures and related factors associated with the risk of prostate cancer between 2000 and 2012. These included chemical, ergonomic, physical or environmental, and psychosocial factors which have been reported by epidemiological studies across a range of industries. Results: The results are inconsistent from study to study and generally this is due to the reliance upon the retrospectivity of case-control studies and prevalence (ecological) studies. Exposure assessment bias is a recurring limitation of many of the studies in this review. Conclusions: We consider there is insufficient evidence to implicate prostate cancer risk for ergonomic, physical, environmental or psychosocial factors, but there is sufficient evidence to implicate toxic metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). More research is required to identify specific pesticides that may be associated with risk of prostate cancer.

Synergistic Increase of Oxidative Stress and Tumor Markers in PAH-Exposed Workers

“…A high risk of developing lung cancer and other respiratory diseases across workers and residents living in high buildings located in Pratunam area, Thailand (Pongpiachan et al, 2013c). In addition, except lung cancer, PAHs were also implicated in prostate cancer risk and gastric cancer (Doolan et al, 2014;Behnampour et al, 2014).…”

Critical Review on the Carcinogenic Potential of Pesticides Used in Korea

“…More recent systematic review studies or case-control studies reported positive association between exposure to pesticides and several cancers including prostate cancer (Van Maele-Fabry and Willems, 2004;Koutros et al, 2010;Doolan G et al, 2014), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) (Merhi et al, 2007;Balasubramaniam et al, 2013;Yildirim et al, 2013;Schinasi and Leon, 2014), leukemia (Merhi et al, 2007;Van Maele-Fabry et al, 2008), multiple myeloma (Merhi et al, 2007) and lung cancer (Ganesh et al, 2011;Luqman et al, 2014). In the case of esophageal or gastric cancer, no relationship with pesticide usage was reported in recent Turkey study (Yildirim et al, 2014).…”

Evaluation of Environmental Risk Factors for Prostate Cancer in a Population of Iranian Patients

“…Identification of mechanisms affecting malignancy of prostate etiology and development results in designing potent treatments. Since it is a multi-factorial disease induced by genetic (Yang et al, 2013) and environmental factors, there are numerous factors which are known to cause or increase the incidence of PCa (Doolan et al, 2014). A proven association between prevalence and mortality rate of prostate cancer and smoking has led many to consider smoking as a significant exogenous risk factor for PCa progress (Huncharek et al, 2010).…”

“…Furthermore, it is recognized as the second leading cause of cancer death in males (Heidenreich et al, 2013). A few risk factors for developing PCa are currently well-known (Doolan et al, 2014). It has been shown that this common malignancy probably originates from a combination of factors including advanced age, ethnicity, family history, endogenous hormones and specific diseases (Quinn and Babb, 2002;Crawford, 2003).…”