Computational Analyses Reveal Deregulated Clock Genes Associated with Breast Cancer Development in Night Shift Workers.

Breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. Women employed in shift jobs face heightened BC risk due to prolonged exposure to night shift work (NSW), classified as potentially carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). This risk is linked to disruptions in circadian rhythms governed by clock genes at the cellular level.

Implementing fencing as adapted physical activity in non-metastatic breast cancer patients: design and early rehabilitation strategy of the FENICE study protocol.

Background: Improving prognosis of BC patients has drawn the attention of health care professionals on disease related long-term side effects and on the multiple treatments BC patients must undergo. Despite advances in procedures, surgery still has multiple detrimental effects, including pain, edema, and limited mobility. For this reason, fostering adapted physical activity (APA) and healthy lifestyle (including a balanced diet and weight management) should become an everyday purpose of healthcare professionals.

Upper Limb Disorders in Catering Workers.

Background: The literature reports that catering workers are exposed to various occupational health hazardsé.

Objective: This study aims to assess a cohort of catering workers in relation to upper limb disorders, thus contributing to the quantification of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in this occupational sector.

Methods: Here, 500 employees, of which 130 were males and 370 were females, with an overall mean age of 50.

Occupational Medicine and Total Worker Health®: from preventing health and safety risks in the workplace to promoting health for the total well-being of the worker.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of Public Health interventions for global social and economic development. Still, the community's well-being depends on each individual's health. In addition to pandemics, health conditions can be altered by chronic degenerative diseases, aging, disabilities, and work.

Effects of Benzene: Hematological and Hypersensitivity Manifestations in Resident Living in Oil Refinery Areas.

Literature is teeming with publications on industrial pollution. Over the decades, the main industrial pollutants and their effects on human health have been widely framed. Among the various compounds involved, benzene plays a leading role in the onset of specific diseases.

Assessing the Impact of Work Activities on the Physiological Load in a Sample of Loggers in Sicily (Italy).

Occupational logging activities expose workers to a wide range of risk factors, such as lifting heavy loads, prolonged, awkward positioning of the lower back, repetitive movements, and insufficient work pauses. Body posture has an important impact on the level of physiological load. The present study involved a group of 40 loggers in the province of Enna (Sicily, Italy) with the aim of defining the impact of logging activities on the workers' physiological strain during the three primary work tasks of felling, delimbing, and bucking.

Occupational hand and wrist disorders among forestry workers: An exposed-control study to investigate preventive strategies.

Background: In the arboriculture sector, some activities are still manually performed by forestry workers, which result consequently exposed to a high risk of developing muscle skeletal disorders. The Italian Compensation Authority reported an increase of work-related tendinopathies and carpal tunnel syndrome in loggers, but screening protocols are not available yet.

Objectives: The objectives were: a) to evaluate the prevalence of tendinopathies and carpal tunnel syndrome in a sample of loggers and b) identify a sound screening approach.

Attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination and containment measures in Italy and the role of occupational physicians.

Background: Vaccine hesitancy is the main barrier to the effective management of COVID-19. This study aims to evaluate attitudes towards vaccination and containment measures in Italy, and the role of occupational physicians in the management of COVID-19.

Methods: Between 26 and 31 January 2022, we conducted a national online survey including 1000 respondents (631 workers) representative of the Italian population.

Quality of Life, Insomnia and Coping Strategies during COVID-19 Pandemic in Hospital Workers. A Cross-Sectional Study.

COVID-19 became a pandemic in a few months, leading to adverse health outcomes, reducing the quality of life, affecting the sleep/wake cycle, and altering coping strategies, especially among hospital personnel. Life quality, insomnia, and coping strategies were thus assessed among hospital personnel during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. This cross-sectional study was conducted from May to November 2020 through an online survey.

Processionary caterpillar reactions in Southern Italy forestry workers: description of three cases.

Background: Processionary caterpillar (PC), also named Thaumatopea pityocampa, has been reported to cause hypersensitivity reactions after contact with a toxin contained in hair-like bristles which cover this insect. Occupational exposure to PC is underestimated in outdoor workers and especially in forestry workers (FW) and is globally diffusing because of rising temperatures.

Cases Presentation: We present the first three cases of FW from Sicily, a Southern Italy (SI) region, which reported hypersensitivity reactions due to exposure to PC infested trees.

Seroprevalence and phylogenetic characterization of hepatitis E virus in pig farms in Southern Italy.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is an emerging public health problem in industrialized countries. The infection is associated with waterborne epidemics and transmitted via faecal-oral route. Zoonotic cases of HEV in humans have increased in Europe, and HEV genotype 3 (HEV-3) is the most frequent among humans and animals.

Hand-Wrist Disorders in Chainsaw Operators: A Follow-Up Study in a Group of Italian Loggers.

Despite the mechanization process implemented in arboriculture, logging tasks are still manually performed by chainsaw operators, which therefore are exposed to the risk of developing hand-wrist musculoskeletal disorders. Our research aimed to: (a) define whether the slight changes observed in 2017 showed an evolution to overt diseases; (b) study some risk determinants for these diseases such as age, working experience, and performing a secondary job. We recruited in a two-year follow-up study, 38 male forestry workers performing logging tasks employed in the Sicilian Forestry Department located in Enna.

Epigenetic Effects of Benzene in Hematologic Neoplasms: The Altered Gene Expression.

Benzene carcinogenic ability has been reported, and chronic exposure to benzene can be one of the risk elements for solid cancers and hematological neoplasms. Benzene is acknowledged as a myelotoxin, and it is able to augment the risk for the onset of acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, aplastic anemia, and lymphomas. Possible mechanisms of benzene initiation of hematological tumors have been identified, as a genotoxic effect, an action on oxidative stress and inflammation and the provocation of immunosuppression.

Biomarkers of Low-Level Environmental Exposure to Benzene and Oxidative DNA Damage in Primary School Children in Sardinia, Italy.

Background: The main anthropic sources of exposure to airborne benzene include vehicular traffic, cigarette smoke, and industrial emissions.

Methods: To detect early genotoxic effects of environmental exposure to benzene, we monitored environmental, personal, and indoor airborne benzene in children living in an urban area and an area near a petrochemical plant. We also used urinary benzene and S-phenylmercapturic acid (S-PMA) as biomarkers of benzene exposure and urinary 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) as a biomarker of early genotoxic effects.

Reporting only relative effect measures was potentially misleading: some good practices for improving the soundness of epidemiological results.

Objective: In the medical and epidemiological literature there is a growing tendency to report an excessive number of decimal digits (often three, sometimes four), especially when measures of relative occurrence are small; this can be misleading.

Study Design And Setting: We combined mathematical and statistical reasoning about the precision of relative risks with the meaning of the decimal part of the same measures from biological and public health perspectives.

Results: We identified a general rule for minimizing the mathematical error due to rounding of relative risks, depending on the background absolute rate, which justifies the use of one or more decimal digits for estimates close to 1.

Determinants of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Italian healthcare workers: a multicenter study.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at increased risk of being infected with SARS-CoV-2, yet limited information is available on risk factors of infection. We pooled data on occupational surveillance of 10,654 HCW who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection in six Italian centers. Information was available on demographics, job title, department of employment, source of exposure, use of personal protective equipment (PPEs), and COVID-19-related symptoms.

Presence of Mycobacterium bovis in slaughterhouses and risks for workers.

An investigation was carried out to detect the presence of Mycobacterium bovis in slaughterhouses where intradermal tuberculin test positive cattle were slaughtered, and to evaluate the risk of contamination by M. bovis among exposed slaughterhouse workers. Swabs were taken from the carcasses of slaughtered animals showing autoptic signs of non-generalized forms of tuberculosis, thus authorized for free consumption.

Local and Transboundary Transmissions of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Sequence Type 398 through Pig Trading.

Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant sequence type (ST) 398 (LA-MRSA ST398) is a genetic lineage for which pigs are regarded as the main reservoir. An increasing prevalence of LA-MRSA ST398 has been reported in areas with high livestock density throughout Europe. In this study, we investigated the drivers contributing to the introduction and spread of LA-MRSA ST398 through the pig farming system in southern Italy.

Unidirectional animal-to-human transmission of methicillin-resistant ST398 in pig farming; evidence from a surveillance study in southern Italy.

Background: Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant (MRSA) belonging to clonal complex 398 is recognized as an occupational hazard for workers employed in intensive animal husbandry, especially in the swine-breeding chain. In this study, we compared the prevalence and epidemiological type of MRSA isolates from swine and farm workers in a large area of southern Italy.

Methods: Between January and March 2018, 88 workers from 32 farms where we had previously performed a survey for MRSA colonization of farmed pigs, were sampled by nasal swabbing.

Formaldehyde Exposure and Acute Myeloid Leukemia: A Review of the Literature.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate associations between cumulative and peak formaldehyde exposure and occurrence of acute myeloid leukemia. A comprehensive search was performed using the PubMed and Embase databases. We included studies presenting information about the role of formaldehyde in leukemic occurrence and mortality risk.

Evaluation of the AGE/sRAGE Axis in Patients with Multiple Myeloma.

Glycative stress influences tumor progression. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the advanced glycation end products/soluble receptor of advanced glycation end products (AGE/sRAGE) axis in patients with multiple myeloma (MM). Blood samples were taken from 19 patients affected by MM and from 16 sex-matched and age-matched healthy subjects.

Prevalence, molecular epidemiology, and antimicrobial resistance of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from swine in southern Italy.

Background: Colonization by livestock-associated MRSA (LA-MRSA) has increasingly been reported in the swine population worldwide. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of MRSA nasal carriage in healthy pigs, including the black (Calabrese) breed, from farms in the Calabria Region (Southern Italy). Between January and March 2018, a total of 475 healthy pigs reared in 32 farms were sampled by nasal swabbing.