Night shift working is associated with an increased risk of thyroid nodules
Menée en 2016 auprès de 299 employés hospitaliers, cette étude analyse l'association entre le travail de nuit et le développement de nodules thyroïdiens pouvant évoluer vers un cancer
Objectives: To study thyroid alterations in health care workers according to their working status. Methods: We performed a retrospective study including 299 hospital employers who underwent in 2016 a periodic health surveillance checks in the Service of Occupational Medicine. According to the working status [rotating night-shift working (n°160) vs day-working (n°139)], we divided participant's clinical, anthropometric and thyroid echographic characteristics. Results: Respect to day workers, rotating night-shift workers were slightly older and more frequently male whereas had similar TSH, Ft3, Ft4 levels and autoimmunity (anti-TPO leves>30). Univariate and multivariate regression analysis revealed that rotating night shift work is associated to a significantly increased number of thyroid nodules. Conclusions: This retrospective report suggests that the alteration in the molecular clocks typical of rotating night-shift workers harbors a higher risk of thyroid nodule development compared with diurnal workers. This novel result deserves replication in larger cohorts since thyroid nodules not rarely can represent thyroid cancers.