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WCLC 2025 | Investigating differential risk factors for lung cancer in women
Muhammad Islam, MD, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, comments on the differences in pathogenesis and behavior of female patients with lung cancer compared to male patients. Female patients need to be treated differently due to various factors such as metabolic variations, racial disparities, and human development index. Despite the lower prevalence of smoking among young females, they are developing more lung cancer than young males. This interview took place at 2025 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Barcelona, Spain.
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Transcript
We found that female lung cancer is totally different from male lung cancer because of the pathogenesis, as they behave differently than males. We know that lung cancer was previously considered a smoking-related disease, but interestingly, in the last 25 years, even in the last five years, the US is facing huge challenges because young females are developing more lung cancer than young males...
We found that female lung cancer is totally different from male lung cancer because of the pathogenesis, as they behave differently than males. We know that lung cancer was previously considered a smoking-related disease, but interestingly, in the last 25 years, even in the last five years, the US is facing huge challenges because young females are developing more lung cancer than young males. Why? What are the factors behind this? So we are trying to find out what the factors are. We did our research on the All of Us Research Program, and here is a cohort of 800,000 patients. We took and looked at what the factors are, and we only took the female lung cancer patients from this cohort. Interestingly, we have found that there are some other variations, such as metabolic variations, some racial disparities, and even the human development index, which is the deprivation index, also impacts lung cancer. So when we are treating the patient as a whole, beyond gender, these things are not going to happen. So we are trying to bring these issues to the forefront of the population and scientists and researchers so that female lung cancer should be treated differently than male lung cancer. Because we know that the EGFR mutation is more common in females. This is related to PM2.5, almost. This is established. Still, in the US, PM2.5 is under control, at less than 7.5. So still, why are young females developing lung cancer more than young males? They don’t smoke as much as males. So we are looking for genetic factors. We have done our genetic GWAS part also. We have found some interesting results, but it’s still in the lab, so we are not going to disclose them. But it is really challenging, and I think this should be done in the next five or ten years. Lung cancer, specifically female lung cancer, should be treated differently than male lung cancer.
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