Sexual dimorphism in the incidence of human cancers.

BACKGROUND: Sex differences in the incidences of cancers become a critical issue in both cancer research and the development of precision medicine. However, details in these differences have not been well reported. We provide a comprehensive analysis of sexual dimorphism in human cancers. METHODS: We analyzed four sets of cancer incidence data from the SEER (USA, 1975-2015), from the Cancer Registry at Mayo Clinic (1970-2015), from Sweden (1970-2015), and from the World Cancer Report in 2012. RESULTS: We found that all human cancers had statistically significant sexual dimorphism with male dominance in the United States and mostly significant in the Mayo Clinic, Sweden, and the world data, except for thyroid cancer, which is female-dominant. CONCLUSIONS: Sexual dimorphism is a clear but mostly neglected phenotype for most human cancers regarding the clinical practice of cancer. We expect that our study will facilitate the mechanistic studies of sexual dimorphism in human cancers. We believe that fully addressing the mechanisms of sexual dimorphism in human cancers will greatly benefit current development of individualized precision medicine beginning from the sex-specific diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

Regulation of sex hormone receptors in sexual dimorphism of human cancers.

Gender differences in the incidences of cancers have been found in almost all human cancers. However, the mechanisms that underlie gender disparities in most human cancer types have been under-investigated. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of potential mechanisms underlying sexual dimorphism of each cancer regarding sex hormone signaling. Fully addressing the mechanisms of sexual dimorphism in human cancers will greatly benefit current development of precision medicine. Our discussions of potential mechanisms underlying sexual dimorphism in each cancer will be instructive for future cancer research on gender disparities.