Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy etc are some common treatments for cancer. These treatments have some common side effects, mild to severe. A new study claims that severe side effects are more common in women compared to men. As per the study, women are 34% more likely to experience severe side effects than their male counterparts. When it comes to severe side effects, the sex disparity is more obvious in patients undergoing immunotherapy treatment, with women having 50% more chance of getting serious side effects if compared to men.
Studies, Findings & Personalized Treatment
Data, received from 202 clinical trials involving more than 23, 000 men and women cancer patients, has been thoroughly studied to reach the conclusions. The higher risk of severe side effects in women indicates an obvious sex disparity. Researchers already knew that women had always been at the risk of getting more severe side effects from chemotherapy. Now, further studies have established that the pattern is same for other types of cancer treatments including the latest ones such as, immunotherapy and targeted therapy.
The findings are just like a ‘call to action’ for the researchers to study the disparity at depth and understand the reasons behind such sex differences linked to the side effects of cancer therapies. The finding also encourages the best surgical oncologist in Kolkata to take a more personalized approach for the treatment by considering the sex of the patient in question.
Personalized Medicine Based on Cancer Patient’s Sex?
Though the researchers are yet to come up with some explanations for the sex differences in their studies, some possible reasons have been pinpointed. These include perception and reporting of side effects by men and women, the biological sex differences, the doses and their administration.
The findings have intrigued the researchers a lot. However, they are not taking it lightly. On contrary, they think that the mechanism driving the sex-based differences regarding treatment-related side effects could open up avenues for new treatments that would effectively reduce toxicity in both men and women.
In recent years, the oncologists have been focusing more on personalized treatment for cancer patients. To date, the focus has been on developing and applying new drugs that would attack the certain protein changes in malignant cells. Now the study underlines the importance of considering other factors while deciding a personalized treatment for the cancer patients.
Researchers have never considered a person’s sex as a part of the personalized approach to develop or recommend cancer medicine. But if further researches confirm the new finding, a patient’s sex will form a component of future cancer treatment, which will make it more inclusive and individualized.
Sex-Based vs Gender-Based Differences
It is highly likely that people would have a lot of confusions over sex-based and gender-based differences regarding experiences of severe side effects from cancer treatment. Sex is biological characteristics whereas gender is about access, occupations, demeanor, perceptions and utilizations about something (health care in this context).
Final Words
Women, if compared to men, are more articulate about their pain, malaise or discomfort from a treatment. It’s almost a social disgrace for men to admit or accept physical pain and uneasiness because it could reveal the lack of their masculinity. This social binding is a viable reason why women are more likely to suffer serious side effects of cancer treatment than men.