FIU Digital Commons

Title

Gender differences in cancer susceptibility: an inadequately addressed issue

Authors

M. Tevfik Dorak, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Florida International UniversityFollow
Ebru Karpuzoglu, University of Georgia

Date of this Version

11-28-2012

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The gender difference in cancer susceptibility is one of the most consistent findings in cancer epidemiology. Hematologic malignancies are generally more common in males and this can be generalized to most other cancers. Similar gender differences in non-malignant diseases including autoimmunity, are attributed to hormonal or behavioral differences. Even in early childhood, however, where these differences would not apply, there are differences in cancer incidence between males and females. In childhood, few cancers are more common in females, but overall, males have higher susceptibility. In Hodgkin lymphoma, the gender ratio reverses toward adolescence. The pattern that autoimmune disorders are more common in females, but cancer and infections in males suggests that the known differences in immunity may be responsible for this dichotomy. Besides immune surveillance, genome surveillance mechanisms also differ in efficiency between males and females. Other obvious differences include hormonal ones and the number of X chromosomes. Some of the differences may even originate from exposures during prenatal development. This review will summarize well-documented examples of gender effect in cancer susceptibility, discuss methodological issues in exploration of gender differences, and present documented or speculated mechanisms. The gender differential in susceptibility can give important clues for the etiology of cancers and should be examined in all genetic and non-genetic association studies.

Gender differences in susceptibility to a disease is a very useful piece of information that can be used to develop a causal hypothesis for the disease, or to define subgroups at highest risk for preventive action (Zahm and Fraumeni, 1995). The gender differential in cancer incidence rates is comparable to ethnic and racial disparity in magnitude, and yet, most studies fail to look for it. In genetic epidemiologic studies, if examined, it is common that genders do not have equal susceptibility to diseases. Exploration of gender disparity in disease susceptibility has not become common practice even in diseases that show sex differential in their incidence rates. Here, we will document this phenomenon in cancer susceptibility with examples, discuss possible mechanisms, and review basic methodology for its examination.

Comments

Originally published in Frontiers in Genetics.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Dorak MT and Karpuzoglu E (2012) Gender differences in cancer susceptibility: an inadequately addressed issue. Front. Gene. 3:268. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2012.00268