Originally published December 27 2005
Cancer researchers now considering gender-based therapies and medicines
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Post Gazette thoroughly reviews a new trend in cancer research across the U.S., in which gender has become a factor in the determination of effective treatments.
Medical researchers are starting to explore an intriguing prospect: that cancer behaves differently in men and women.
It could hold clues to new ways to use certain medications -- perhaps in combination with other treatments, including hormones.
Cell Therapeutics Inc. of Seattle will announce Tuesday that it is launching a women-only clinical trial for lung-cancer patients to test the efficacy of its new drug, Xyotax.
It had shown no significant survival benefit in two previous trials.
But amid burgeoning interest in gender differences, researchers went back and analyzed the results for men and women separately -- and they found that women taking the drug saw a significant survival advantage.
Research efforts by the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Wisconsin and the Southwest Oncology Group, a research and clinical-trials consortium, are all exploring the gender issue in cancer.
Researchers are interested in the reasons why heart disease kills more women than men, and why the majority of people who have autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus are women.
Last year, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles set up a Women's Health Research Registry for investigators in all diseases, with the aim of registering 10,000 women over the next five years who are willing to participate in clinical trials.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 73,020 women will die this year of lung cancer, more than breast, ovarian and uterine cancer combined.
Edward Trimble, head of gynecological cancer therapies at the National Cancer Institute, expresses caution about the idea of women-only trials.
He cites an example in lung cancer, when studies of Iressa, a targeted therapy for lung cancer, showed that patients with a particular genetic mutation appeared to be more responsive to the drug.
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