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B. Silverman
Author of
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Poster Display session (Friday) (ID 65)
- Event: ELCC 2018
- Type: Poster Display session
- Track:
- Presentations: 1
- Moderators:
- Coordinates: 4/13/2018, 12:30 - 13:00, Hall 1
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42P - Is there a delay in diagnosis of lung cancer in women? (ID 442)
12:30 - 13:00 | Author(s): B. Silverman
- Abstract
Background:
Lung cancer remains a major cause of death in the world, and while it was considered in the past to be primarily a male disease, the number of female patients has risen in recent years, such that rates among women are similar to those among men. Nevertheless, it has been found previously (in cardiovascular disease) that when there is a sex specific stereotype to a disease, it may remain entrenched in medical diagnostic processes, so as to cause belated diagnosis among the other sex. Here we aim to characterize the effects of sex on lung cancer diagnosis.
Methods:
We performed a retrospective analysis using two cohorts, 458,132 patients from the USA using the SEER (Statistics, Epidemiology and End Results) database, and 30330 patients from Israel. Patient cohorts were analyzed for sex-based differences by tumor type and stage at diagnosis, and results were stratified by race and analyzed with data regarding possible confounders such as smoking and socio-economic factors.
Results:
Male patients were more likely than female patients to be diagnosed at stage 3–4, consistent across lung cancer types, cancer registries, smoking, and racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. The exception to this was the arab population in the Israeli cohort, where there was no significant difference between men and women in the percentage diagnosed in later stages. The difference between the percentage of men vs. women diagnosed in stages 3–4 correlated negatively with increased female ever smokers and with squamous and small cell carcinoma, and were not correlated with the rate of cancer in women, or the difference between male and female cancer rates. Race was shown to have a significant effect on the percentage of women diagnosed in later stages.
Conclusions:
Results do not show a general belated diagnosis of lung cancer in women. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case. Results appear to point to the fact that smoking women are more likely to be diagnosed at later stages, which is consistent with current literature. Israeli arab women may suffer from belated lung cancer diagnosis, despite very low levels of smoking, perhaps owing to social and cultural causes.
Clinical trial identification:
Legal entity responsible for the study:
Institute of Oncology, Soroka Medical Center & Ben-Gurion University
Funding:
Has not received any funding
Disclosure:
N. Peled: Advisor & honorarium from AZ, BI, BMS, Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Takeda, FMI. All other authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
