Conference Coverage
Head and neck cancers: Women less commonly receive intensive chemo
CHICAGO - Senior study author Dr. Jed A. Katzel discusses ongoing research to understand the reasons behind the apparent disparities.
CHICAGO – Sex disparities in the treatment of head and neck cancer may be leading to poorer outcomes for women, according to a retrospective registry-based cohort study of 884 patients reported at annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
“The treatment of head and neck cancer often requires intensive treatment that can have lasting side effects,” senior study author Jed A. Katzel, MD, a medical oncologist at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara, Calif., said in a press briefing. “Our goal was to review data from a large group of patients in Northern California to determine which patients are most likely to benefit from aggressive therapy, while minimizing toxicity for those likely to die from competing events.”
Susan London/MdEdge News
Dr. Jed A. Katzel
The reasons for the observed sex disparities are not known, according to Dr. Katzel. However, they may include patient preferences, physician practices, and the higher proportion among men of oropharynx tumors, as those tumors are more commonly associated with human papillomavirus (HPV), which carries a more favorable prognosis.
“Further investigation is needed to determine if there is an actual difference in treatment and outcomes for women, compared with men,” he said. “To this end, we have planned a chart-by-chart review, as well as a prospective analysis that will be performed in the currently enrolling NRG HN004 clinical trial.”
“The outcome of this study was very surprising to us, the idea that there are disparities in both the treatment that women receive relative to men, but also in the rate of death from head and neck cancer for women compared to men,” commented ASCO Expert Joshua Jones, MD, MA, who is also a radiation oncologist at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.