Women Have Lower Risk for Death After Resection for Lung Cancer

TUESDAY, Dec. 1, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Women undergoing pulmonary resection for lung cancer have an improved prognosis compared with men, according to a study published online Nov. 16 in Chest.

Erik Sachs, M.D., from the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, and colleagues conducted a nationwide population-based observational cohort study to examine sex-specific survival after pulmonary resection for lung cancer among 6,356 patients. To account for differences in baseline characteristics, inverse probability of treatment weighting was used. The correlation between female sex and all-cause mortality was examined using Cox regression models.

The researchers found that the risk for death was lower for women than men (hazard ratio, 0.73). At one, five, and 10 years, the absolute survival difference was 3.0, 10, and 12 percent, respectively. At 10 years, the restricted mean survival time difference was 0.84 years. Across several subgroups, these findings were consistent.

“The health care sector is always striving to offer all patients equal treatment tailored to their individual needs,” Sachs said in a statement. “This kind of study can help shed light on systematic differences that ultimately affect patient outcomes.”

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