Sex bias of females in survival from cancer and infections. Is X the answer?
Ce dossier présente un ensemble d'articles concernant la prise en charge des cancers durant la crise sanitaire liée au COVID-19
Major differences in survival of men and women from infectious diseases and cancers have been highlighted by death rates from COVID-19 infections. In cancer, attention has been focussed on differences in gene expression from X chromosomes in men and women with a preponderance of genes involved in immune responses being expressed in women. Important findings have been that some of the genes are important epigenetic regulators that play fundamental roles in immune responses.
One of the striking features of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has been the higher death rates in men even though the infection rates seem similar between men and women.1 Similar findings were reported from Wuhan where men had 2.4 times the death rate of women2 and in New York where press releases stated twice the death rate of men compared with women.3 Although men had higher rates of comorbidities, these differences were not considered sufficient to explain the higher death rates and other explanations have been sort. Women are considered to have stronger immune responses against infective diseases and a higher rate of autoimmune diseases, so this has questioned whether the lower death rate may have an immune basis.
A sex bias is not only seen in infections, but also in cancers where a strong sex bias in survival from cancer is well documented.4,5 For example, women in Australia have approximately half the death rates from melanoma as males.6 A number of explanations have been proposed to account for these major differences in melanoma, such as higher sun exposure in males7 and higher mutation rates8 in melanoma from males. When stringent statistical analyses are carried out, however, female sex remains as the major contributor to longer survival (...)
British Journal of Cancer , commentaire en libre accès, 2021