Women and Lung Cancer: Researchers Look For Gender Connection. Female Cancer Patients Sought For Large-Scale Clinical Trial

According to a recent survey on health concerns, women fear breast cancer most. Despite the fears expressed in the survey, conducted by the International Communications Research of Media for the Society of Women's Health Research in 2005, lung cancer is actually the leading cancer killer of women. Lung cancer takes the lives of approximately 68,000 women each year.

While smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer, there is growing evidence that points to gender differences in the risk of developing lung cancer and the implications for treating the disease in men and women.

For example, while the number of men diagnosed with lung cancer has been going down, the number of women has risen 60 percent since 1990. In addition, women who are nonsmokers are 2.5 times more likely to develop lung cancer than men who are nonsmokers.

Scientific evidence points to estrogen as a factor in the difference between how lung cancer acts in men versus women. That biological difference promises to have important implications for lung cancer treatments.

It is believed that the estrogen in women may influence lung tumor growth by causing the synthesis of tumor-promoting proteins. Since women have higher levels of estrogen than men, and younger women have higher levels of estrogen than older women, this may in part be responsible for their higher risk for nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Developing therapies that are favorably influenced by estrogen may provide a gender-targeted therapeutic approach to the treatment of the disease.

Researchers are currently studying a novel approach to targeting lung cancer in women that relies on a chemotherapy agent that exploits the presence of estrogen in women and its effect on the metabolism of proteins in the cancer cell. Cell Therapeutics, Inc. (CTI) developed XYOTAX (paclitaxel poliglumex) initially as a lung cancer drug for all patients-regardless of gender. Retrospective analysis of two Phase III clinical trials found the drug, as compared to standard chemotherapy treatments, had a significant survival advantage in women while having equivalent survival in men.

New clinical trial

Now, Cell Therapeutics is embarking on another clinical study exclusively in women to see if the theory proves true in a larger population of women. The trial, known as PIONEER, is the first approval trial for lung cancer exclusively targeting women and is expected to enroll 600 patients with advanced lung cancer.

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Alcohol and Cancer: Understanding the Connection

Research has shown that risks for cancer increase among men who have two alcoholic drinks a day and women who have one alcoholic drink per day. While everyone has been widely aware of the fact that smoking cigarettes greatly increase your risk of contracting cancer, there has been very little publicity of the fact that alcohol can act as a similar carcinogen.

By its very nature and design, the consumption of alcohol damages cells in your body. This damage can easily promote cell division, stimulate enzymes which cause the activation of other carcinogens and destroy certain nutrients that act as natural preventatives to cancer.

Most of the research indicates that a strong link exists between alcohol and cancers of the esophagus, pharynx and mouth. There is a suggested, those less strongly proven, link between cancers of the liver, breast and colon.

According to the American Cancer Society, oral cancers are six times more common in alcohol users than in non alcohol users.

Obviously, all of this evidence points to the conclusion that you should avoid alcohol so you can lower your chances of contracting these types of cancer.

For most people the question then comes down to a simple decision: are the benefits of drinking alcohol larger than the potential deficits of cancer? As long as the mythology continues that there is no cure for cancer, the question should be fairly simple to answer. Very few people would happily enjoy a few nights out with friends drinking for months or years of painful cancer.

Put plainly, our bodies are designed to heal themselves. Our immune system was created to keep our bodies healthy. However, like any other worker, our immune system cannot do its work if we don’t give it the necessary tools.

One of the effects of alcohol, which isn’t one of the reasons most folks drink it, is that it reduces the ability of your immune system to do its job. So, people who regularly drink alcohol are regularly inhibiting the ability of their immune system to do its job.

Our cells are constantly dividing and there are a large number of ways the cell can become malignant. In reality, we probably develop malignant cells on a daily basis. However, once they become known to our immune system as a threat, they are destroyed.

It’s only when our immune system somehow misses the indications that a cell is becoming a problem that we term it cancer.

There is no dispute about the fact that doing anything which will inhibit our immune system increases our chances for becoming ill. It’s significantly odd, then, that we all continue going about our lives while continually doing things that inhibit our immune systems.

In the end, we all need to evaluate the actions we take and the decisions we make with an eye towards the potential rewards versus the potential risks. Alcohol diminishes the immune system and a diminished immune system greatly elevates our chances of developing cancer. Next time you start to drink alcohol, stop and ask your immune system if it really wants to get drunk.

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