Screening guidelines
Commenting on the findings in an accompanying editorial, Claudia Poleri, MD, Hospital María Ferrer, Buenos Aires, says that this Australian study provides “valuable information.”
“The risk of dying from lung cancer was significantly higher for men than for women,” she writes. “Differences in treatment-related factors explained 50% of the sex survival differential, followed by lifestyle and tumor-related factors (28% and 26%, respectively).
“Nevertheless, these differences alone do not explain the higher survival in women,” she comments.
“Does it matter to analyze the differences by sex in lung cancer?” Dr. Poleri asks in the editorial, and then answers herself: “It matters.”
“It is necessary to implement screening programs and build artificial intelligence diagnostic algorithms considering the role of sex and gender equity to ensure that innovative technologies do not induce disparities in clinical care,” she writes.
“It is crucial to conduct education and health public programs that consider these differences, optimizing the use of available resources, [and] it is essential to improve the accuracy of research design and clinical trials,” she adds.
Dr. Yu and Dr. Poleri declared no relevant financial interests.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.