'Men more likely to die from cancer than women'

Washington, July 13 (ANI): A new study has found that overall cancer mortality rates are higher for men than women in the United States.

Michael B. Cook, an investigator in the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the National Cancer Institute, and colleagues used U.S. vital rates and survival data from the SEER database for 36 cancers by gender and age to assess whether cancer mortality rates and cancer survival differed by gender.

"Men are more likely to die from cancer than women," said Cook of their findings.

"We found this to be true for a majority of specific types of cancer," he added.

For many cancers, men have poorer survival than women but the differences are slight. It is difficult to assign any singular root cause, but influences include differences in behaviour of the tumour, cancer screening among people without symptoms, presence of other illnesses and health care seeking behaviours.

"Our research suggests that the main factor driving the greater frequency of cancer deaths in men is the greater frequency of cancer diagnosis, rather than poorer survival once the cancer occurs," said Cook.

"If we can identify the causes of these gender differences in cancer incidence then we can take preventative actions to reduce the cancer burden in both men and women," added Cook.

The study has been published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. (ANI)