Why is lung cancer in women different from men?

Main Category: Lung Cancer
Article Date: 04 Jun 2004 - 7:00 PDT

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Noting that lung cancer is women's number one cancer killer, Loyola medical oncologist Dr. Kathy S. Albain will speak on the molecular differences in lung cancer between men and women, June 4, at the annual meeting of Women Against Lung Cancer, a Professional Alliance for Education and Research (WALC), at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel, Two Poydras Street, New Orleans. "Lung cancer takes more women's lives than reproductive cancers and breast cancer combined," said Albain, WALC vice president and professor, division of hematology/oncology, Department of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood, Ill. "We must devote more resources to battling this devastating disease."

Albain is calling for more research funding targeted to examining why lung cancer is so deadly and why it affects men and women so differently.

"Cigarette smoke damages women's lungs more than men's lungs and lung cancer treatment affects women differently than men," said Albain, director, Breast Research Program; co-director of the multidisciplinary Breast Oncology Center; and director of the Thoracic Oncology Program, Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, Loyola University Health System, Maywood, Ill.

Albain has been a principal or senior investigator for major national and international research into treating breast and lung cancer.

Women Against Lung Cancer (www.4WALC.org) was established in 2001 to educate the public and health care professionals about the magnitude of the lung cancer problem in women. WALC supports and encourages research in gender-related differences in the causes, treatments and prevention of lung cancer. WALC also mentors women health care professionals to pursue careers in lung cancer research.

The WALC board is composed of leading women oncology health care professionals in the United States and Canada, along with members of women's advocacy groups and the lay public.

For more information on Loyola University Health System, log onto http://www.luhs.org.

Loyola University Health System, a wholly owned subsidiary of Loyola University Chicago, includes Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC), 18 specialty and primary care centers in the western and southwestern suburbs, the Loyola Ambulatory Surgery Center at Oakbrook, the Loyola Imaging Center at Oakbrook Terrace, and serves as co-owner-operator of RML Specialty Hospital, a long-term-care facility for ventilator-dependent patients in suburban Hinsdale, Ill. LUMC, a private, academic health care institution, is nationally recognized for its specialty care and research in such areas as cancer, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, pediatrics, neonatology and neurosciences, burn and trauma care and organ transplantation. The 73-acre campus in Maywood, Ill., includes the 523-bed licensed Loyola Hospital with a Level I trauma center, Russo Surgical Pavilion, Cardiovascular Institute, Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, Ronald McDonald Children's Hospital of LUMC, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, the Loyola Outpatient Center, the region's largest burn unit and one of the Midwest's largest and most comprehensive organ transplant programs.

Contact: Joanne Swanson
jswanson@lumc.edu
708-216-2445
Loyola University Health System