Doctors once considered lung cancer a disease of older men, but today lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women. Now that researchers are taking a closer look, it's becoming clear that lung cancer is a different disease in women than it is in men.
Early research indicates that susceptibility to tobacco smoke, estrogen and even differences in DNA may all play a role in the way lung cancer behaves in women. Understanding what makes lung cancer in women unique should help researchers develop targeted therapies for women. Below, Jyoti Patel, MD, an instructor of medicine at the division of hematology-oncology at Northwestern University in Chicago, discusses what we know so far about lung cancer in women.
Are women's smoking rates declining around the world?
In the United States, women's smoking rates peaked in the 1960s and have been falling since then. While smoking in men has declined by half since the 1960s, smoking in women had only decreased by 25 percent. About 20 to 25 percent of U.S. women continue to smoke.
Worldwide, as women are given political and social freedoms, they pick up smoking. We are now seeing this play out in Asia and Africa. So, if you look at Japan, for example, this is a country with a culture in which women did not smoke for years. There is a study that actually showed that the smoking rate in women doubled over 10 years, from 9 to 18 percent, when tobacco advertising increased in the late 1980s to early 1990s.
Do women hav...
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