Gender Differences In Lung Cancer

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Although the high awareness of breast cancer risks, women appear to be unconscious of their high lung cancer threats. The poor prognosis for lung cancer prompts comparative patterns to breast cancer occurrence and mortalities worldwide. Previously, Lung cancer was considered as a threat influencing just men, however recent epidemiological data have demonstrated a sensational increment of the frequency of this malignant disease among women decreasing the gender gap incidents since the 1980s, predominantly as an outcome of the immense tobacco consumption in the last decade (2).

Toward the early twentieth century fewer cases of lung cancer were identified in Western countries, however, with the huge spread of tobacco consumption there was
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The evaluated incidences of lung cancer cases have expanded by 51% since 1985, where 49.9% of lung malignancy cases originated in developed countries. Gender; however, has significantly been showing differences in lung cancer incidences with an approximate increase of 44% in male-gender and 76% in female-gender 916). Histology, coupled with gender, plays an important tool in lung cancer prognoses, where squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma represents 80-90% of the over all global lung cancer incidences (9). Respectively, gender disparities in the rate and stage of histological subtypes have been described (9,18,19). Studies have shown that squamous cell carcinomas is proportional within genders, where male-genders incidence being anywhere from 3-50 times more than female-genders. Moreover, it has been shown that women are at higher danger than men of developing Adenocarcinoma, bronchioalveolar carcinomas and small cell lung cancer (9, 13). Since women develop lung cancer at a younger age, thus studies inferred that female-gender is inevitably prone in developing lung cancer (26,27). Furthermore, few studies have noted greater survival rates in women with NSCLC after going through surgical resection (9,20-23). …show more content…
Studies indicate that women lung cancer biology is different from that in men, which makes them more susceptible to develop it than men. These biological distinctions; therefore, influence disparities in lung cancer morbidity and progression between genders (28). For example, tobacco metabolism is higher in women than in men, this contributes to women smokers’ morbidity when diagnosed with lung cancer (29). Nevertheless, Women's hormones, such as estrogen, might impact cancer’s progression.
A recent report showed that post-menopausal women who were going under hormonal therapy for over 10 years were at a higher danger of forming lung cancer (30). Another study showed that women diagnosed with breast cancer and are treated with tamoxifine (an estrogen-blocking medication) diminishes their lung cancer mortality risk (31). These studies associate lung cancer with women hormones irrespectively to their smoking status.
Despite the evidences of gender disparities in lung cancer, gender-designed diagnostic and therapeutic approaches are yet to exist. Further investigation into gender influences will allow a better understanding of existing gender discrepancies in turn stimulating research progress towards personalized sex-based