Women have higher cancer-survival rates than men: study
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$1 per week for 24 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $4.00 plus GST every four weeks. After 24 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.00 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.75/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2016 (3474 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Women diagnosed with cancer have a higher survival rate than men, according to numbers released by Statistics Canada.
The five-year study, Differences in cancer survival in Canada by sex, shows women diagnosed with cancer have a 13 per cent lower risk of death than men.
The numbers are from the Canadian Cancer Registry.
The advantage was greatest for thyroid cancer, where women have a 69 per cent lower risk of death, followed by skin melanoma at rates 48 per cent lower and Hodgkin lymphoma at rates 35 per cent lower.
As for the reason women have a better survival rate after a cancer diagnosis, researchers can only hypothesize.
“Women are more likely to engage in health-promoting behaviours, which can result in earlier and greater interaction with the health care system, leading to perhaps an earlier diagnosis,” said Larry Ellison, an epidemiologist involved in the study.
The study also found that younger women have a higher survival advantage, Ellison said, which might suggest female hormones could be a factor.
President of CancerCare Manitoba Dr. Sri Navaratnam, who has been researching survival rates in lung cancer for more than 10 years, said there is indication that estrogen could be a factor in higher survival rates for women.
“It’s a very promising area of research,” said Navaratnam. “If there is a certain gene or molecule contributing to (women) doing better after diagnosis, we can look at targeting that for different treatment options.”
But women don’t have the advantage for every type of cancer.
The study also shows women have a significant disadvantage when diagnosed with bladder cancer, where they have a 23 per cent higher risk of death than men.
“One theory is that the diagnosis of bladder cancer may be more delayed for women, and that’s perhaps because of the rarity in women relative to men,” Ellison said. “Bladder cancer is a lot more likely to be diagnosed in men than women.”
Women are also more likely to get certain cancers, Navaratnam said.
“It’s interesting… women are more susceptible to lung cancer, but when they get it they do better (than men),” Navaratnam said.
The study examined 18 different types of cancers, excluding breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer.
erin.debooy@freepress.mb.ca