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Even though a relationship between farmer work and the development of brain tumors was suggest by the scientific literature, a small number of italian studies investigate on the impact of this job on the cancer morbidity of farmer population. The informations about this case-control study were obtained from patients recruited in the Neurosurgical Department of the University-Hospital of Pisa, Italy, from 1990 to 2000. One hundred and seventy-four, newly diagnosed cases of brain tumors (glioma and meningiomas, histologically confirmed), were recruited, such as 522 controls (with other non tumoral neurologic diseases: trauma, etc), by matching cases and controls (1:3), for age (± 5 years) and gender. Cases and controls were interviewed in the Neurosurgical Department, University-Hospital of Pisa, Italy, and the occupational histories of cases and controls were compared. Cases and controls have showed a statistically significant difference, based on their occupation (agricultural vs. non-agricultural). We observed a significant association among brain tumors and rural activity in evaluated patients (P=0.008). Further studies regarding this population group are needed, to determine the causes for the increased risk of this cancer, particularly in regions where there is an intense agricultural activity and where pesticides are used. Furthermore, a subsequent reevaluation in other patients collected in more recent years will be needed to evaluate the trend of this association.

A literature review was performed to highlight which work-related diseases express sex/gender differences in health outcomes and focus the main limits of studies in this field.The research, carried out on PubMed by specific search string, identified 4828 articles (1997-2017 period) of which 381 are eligible for review (4-22%, depending on the disease).Among them, 68% reported sex/gender differences in health outcomes, which in most cases appear to be due to different exposure and/or work segregation rather than to biological differences. However, few studies place this assessment among the research goals and results are almost never discussed and hypothesis are seldom formulated about any observed differences.It seems necessary to use research methodologies and study design that can detect and explain the described complexity and useful in defining appropriate preventive strategies.È stata condotta una revisione della letteratura per evidenziare quali tra le patologie lavoro-correlate esprimano differenze di sesso/genere negli outcome di salute e focalizzare i principali limiti degli studi in tale ambito. La ricerca, effettuata su PubMed mediante stringa specifica, ha identificato 4828 articoli (periodo 1997-2017) di cui 381 eleggibili ai fini della revisione (4-22% a seconda della patologia). Tra questi, il 68% hanno evidenziato differenze di sesso/genere negli outcome di salute che nella maggior parte dei casi sembrano dovute ad una diversa esposizione e/o ad una segregazione lavorativa, piuttosto che a differenze biologiche. Pochi studi tuttavia pongono tale valutazione tra gli obiettivi della ricerca e i risultati non vengono quasi mai discussi e raramente vengono formulate ipotesi sulle eventuali differenze osservate. Appare necessario utilizzare metodologie di ricerca e disegni degli studi in grado di rilevare e spiegare la complessità descritta e utili a definire adeguate strategie preventive.