Cancer kills more men than women, says National Cancer Institute
(CBS) Cancer kills.
Each year, nearly 570,000 Americans die from cancer, while another 1.5 million are diagnosed with a form of the disease. Now, a study by the National Cancer Institute suggests one group may be at a much greater risk to die from cancer - men.
Why? Are women just more likely to survive bouts with cancer?
Only slightly - according to the study's authors. But the main reason for this finding is that men seem to develop the disease more often than women.
"Our research suggests that the main factor driving greater frequency of cancer deaths in men is the greater frequency of cancer diagnosis, rather than poorer survival once the cancer occurs," study co-author Dr. Michael B. Cook, researcher at the National Cancer Institute, said in a written statement.
Researchers examined data that Institute collected from 1977 to 2006 on 36 different types of cancer, for the study that was published in the July 12th issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. They found that more men died from most types of cancer more often than women.
The highest male to female death rates were seen in lip cancer, where 5.51 men died for every female. Next was throat cancer, which killed 5.37 men for every one woman.
Even the deadliest cancers were more likely to kill men. Lung cancer - the no. 1 cancer killer for both sexes - killed 2.3 men for every one woman over the three decade span, while colon cancer took 1.42 men's lives for every woman. Pancreatic cancer was found to kill 1.37 men per one female.
When the scientists looked at 5-year survival rates following a cancer diagnosis, they found women barely edged out men for many cancers. There's no "singular root cause" why, according to the authors, but factors like how fast a tumor grows, how often people are screened, who is more likely to see a doctor, may play into the findings.
Some experts aren't surprised by the report.
"This is not really a novel finding," Rebecca Siegel, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, told HealthDay. "We know that men have a higher risk of developing and dying from cancer for a variety of reasons, and some reasons which we don't fully understand." She said the death rates also reflect the different tobacco and alcohol-use patterns between men and women. Men are also more likely to be exposed to carcinogens in the workplace.
