• Long-term night shift work among women increased the risk of cancer by 19%.
• A meta-analysis using using international data from 61 articles comprising 114,628 cancer cases and 3,909,152 participants.
• These studies found an association between long-term night shift work and risk of 11 types of cancer.

Women who work overnight have a comparatively high risk of developing cancer than women who do not, say researchers. An analysis of international data has confirmed an association between night-shifts and cancer.

"Our study indicates that night shift work serves as a risk factor for common cancers in women," said Xuelei Ma, co-author of the study from West China Medical Center of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China.

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Findings

• Long-term night shift work among women increased the risk of cancer by 19 percent.
• Nurses (working in night shifts) had the highest risk of breast cancer, of all the occupations analysed.
• The population of women working on night shifts have an increase risk of skin (41%), breast (32%) and gastrointestinal cancer (18%).
• Among female nurses alone, those who worked the night shift had an increased risk of breast (58%), gastrointestinal (35%) and lung cancer (28%).

Methodology

• A meta-analysis using data from 61 articles comprising 114,628 cancer cases and 3,909,152 participants from North Amercia, Europe, Australia and Asia.
• The articles consisted of 26 cohort studies, 24 case-control studies and 11 nested case-control studies.
• These studies found an association between long-term night shift work and risk of 11 types of cancer.

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"Nurses that worked the night shift were of a medical background and may have been more likely to undergo screening examinations," the researcher suggested.

"Long-term night shift workers should have regular physical examinations and cancer screenings," Ma noted.

The study was published in journal Cancer Epidemiology. (IANS)