Women more vulnerable to tobacco carcinogens than men

May 3 2009

According to researchers in Switzerland women are more vulnerable to tobacco carcinogens than men.

The researchers conducted a study involving 683 lung cancer patients referred to the cancer centre between 2000 and 2005 and they found that women tended to be younger when they developed the cancer, despite having smoked on average significantly less than men.

Dr. Martin Frueh and his colleagues say their findings suggest that women may have an increased susceptibility to tobacco carcinogens.

The research was presented at the European Multidisciplinary Conference in Thoracic Oncology (EMCTO), in Lugano, Switzerland on the weekend and experts say the results support a growing awareness that smoking presents greater risks to women than men.

Dr. Enriqueta Felip from Val d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, conference co-chair, says in the early 1900's 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. Felip says lung cancer is not only a man's disease, but women tend to be much more aware of other cancers, such as breast cancer and research suggests that women are more vulnerable to tobacco carcinogens than men.

Other research presented at the conference suggests that women tend to do better than men after surgery to remove lung tumours - Irish researchers led by Dr. Bassel Al-Alao studied 640 patients whose non-small-cell lung cancer was surgically removed over a 10-year period, 239 of whom were women - they found that median survival after surgery was 2.1 years for men, and 4.7 years for women.