There are several characteristics that distinguish lung cancer in female patients from that in male patients. Female individuals who do not smoke are approximately three times more susceptible to lung cancer that male individuals who do not smoke. Compared with lung cancer in male patients with a history of smoking a subtype of lung cancer (adenocarcinoma) occurs more frequently in female patients that have never smoked.
A recent study looked at sex-specific reproductive factors associated with the risk of lung cancer. Previous studies have given some conflicting results, but this study used the largest surveyed number of patients (273,190) from the UK Biobank.
The results of this study demonstrated that female individuals were at increased risk for a subtype of lung cancer even if they did not smoke if, their menopause occurred early in life, they had a shortened reproductive life or were younger at their first offsprings birth. Clearly, these findings indicated that the increased susceptibility to a lung cancer, even if the individual had never smoked, was in-part related to reproductive hormonal factors. Disruption of sexual hormones is considered one of the major contributing factors. This disruption may be related to disease or surgical intervention.
Because the issue of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and its relationship to a variety of confounding factors, a great deal of controversy surrounds the relationship between the use of HRT and the risk of lung cancer.
Smoking only increases the risk of lung cancer in these patient groups.
