Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – A new study shows that more young and middle-aged women are diagnosed with lung cancer at a higher rate than men, and scientists are struggling to understand the reason behind this.
There is little awareness of the effects of the disease on women, according to experts, and the US government spends less on research on them than on similar studies on men.
Radiation oncologist and volunteer medical spokesperson for the American Lung Association, Dr. Andrea Mackey, said: “When you ask people about the number one cancer that kills women, most of them will say it is breast cancer, but it is not. Rather, it is lung cancer. Lung cancer is a disease that affects women. But clearly we need to educate more people about it.”
McKee recently attended the GO2 Lung Cancer Conference, where experts and advocates spoke about the relative disparities in women with lung cancer and ways to help more people realize that this “hidden” cancer in women is a major problem that kills about 164 women every day in United State.
Historically, Mackey noted, lung cancer has been considered a disease of older men, in part because they were the target demographic for tobacco companies to begin with, and smoking is the primary cause of lung cancer.
Cigarettes were even part of military rations during World War II.
Historians report that smoking was largely taboo for women, until it became associated with women’s independence, and later, it began to attract the attention of tobacco companies as well.
But these changes do not fully explain the increase in lung cancer among women.
Smoking rates have fallen dramatically over the past two decades, according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), yet the rate of cancer among women has inversely risen, especially among women who have never smoked.
Research published this week in JAMA Oncology found that more women between the ages of 35 and 54 were being diagnosed with lung cancer at a higher rate than men of the same age.
This study included individuals diagnosed with lung cancer between 2000 and 2019.
Part of the reason is the decline in the number of men diagnosed with lung cancer, which was greater than the decline in women.
The researchers noted that fewer men were exposed to carcinogens in the workplace, but that could not explain the changes either.
The lack of understanding about what underpins this gender trend in lung cancer has partly served as a push for more funding to study these disparities and hopefully identify them, so public health leaders can address these specific issues.
Many women were excluded from some large lung cancer studies, and before 1993, most clinical trials also excluded women.
Research found that lung cancer diagnoses rose by 84% in women over the past 43 years, even though many of these women had never smoked, and fell by 36% in men.
In fact, women who never smoked were more than twice as likely to develop lung cancer as men who never smoked.
Other risk factors include family history, exposure to secondhand smoke, radon, asbestos, contamination and arsenic in drinking water, according to the American Cancer Society.
Lung cancer is extremely deadly, in part because it is often diagnosed late when it is difficult to treat, despite tremendous advances in treatment in recent years.
Only 5% of people eligible for lung cancer screening undergo this test, according to the American Lung Association.
Researchers hope that studies showing gender differences in lung cancer will make health care providers aware of how this disease affects women so they can know how to monitor it.
2023-10-17 10:25:24
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