Gender Matters in Lung Cancer
Reported May 07, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) When it comes to lung cancer, it makes a difference whether you are a man or woman.
Two new studies suggest the disease strikes the genders differently. In the first, Swiss researchers looked at 683 lung cancer patients, finding women tended to be younger than men at diagnosis and developed the disease after smoking fewer cigarettes over their lifetimes.
The investigators believe women may be more sensitive to the cancer-causing ingredients in tobacco smoke, which helps to explain the significant increase seen in lung cancer in women in recent years.
In the early 1900s lung cancer was reported to be rare in women, but since the 1960s it has progressively reached epidemic proportions, becoming the leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the United States, Dr. Enriqueta Felip, from Val dHebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, was quoted as saying.
But while women may be more likely to develop lung cancer at an earlier age and after less exposure to cigarette smoke, they also appear to stand up to the disease better than their male counterparts. Another study out of Ireland followed 640 lung cancer patients over a ten-year period. Median survival after surgery was 4.7 years for women versus just 2.1 years for men.
SOURCE: Presented at the European Multidisciplinary Conference in Thoracic Oncology, May 3, 2009
