Introduction:

Prostate neoplasia is the second most diagnosed cancer in men, having well established risk factors such as advanced age, familial and ethnic susceptibility. Recently, the association with environmental or lifestyle factors has been investigated, opening the possibility of certain occupational risk factors being associated with a higher incidence of this disease.

Although controversial, as it does not necessarily imply a malignant etiology, prostate-specific antigen remains the mainstay in screening for this disease.

Case report:

This is the case of a 60-year-old surgeon with 36 years of professional history, including shift and night-work. As part of the health surveillance carried out by Occupational Medicine, he underwent complementary diagnostic tests and an increase in prostate-specific antigen was detected, culminating in a biopsy which ultimately confirmed the diagnosis of prostate adenocarcinoma.

Discussion/Conclusion:

Shift work, and particularly night work, has been investigated as a possible carcinogen and is currently classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as "probably carcinogenic to humans". Given the growing evidence linking certain occupational factors with this and other neoplasms, it may be sensible to include cancer screening in workers' health surveillance protocols, in some sectors. In the case presented, the inclusion of prostate-specific antigen measurement in the complementary tests requested by Occupational Medicine allowed for a timely diagnosis, with detection and treatment of the disease at an early stage.

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