Men More Likely to Die of Cancer, Study Shows

Men have a higher chance of dying from certain types of cancer than women, a new cancer research shows.

A new study published in the journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention found men have a higher mortality rate for a vast majority of cancers than women do. The researchers used U.S. vital rates and survival data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results, or SEER, database and looked at 36 cancers by sex and age between 1977 and 2006, a summary of the research stated.

SEER is a National Cancer Institute, or NCI, program that provides a source of information on cancer incidence and survival rate in the U.S.

Researcher found that men have a higher mortality rate in cancers of the lip (5.51), larynx (5.37), hypopharynx (4.47), esophagus (4.08), and urinary bladder (3.36), for each woman.

Michael Cook, an investigator in the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the NCI and the study's lead investigator, told Reuters that the main reason for the difference is that men are more at risk of developing cancer to begin with.

Cook also told Reuters that American men are more likely than women to have advanced disease by the time their cancer is diagnosed.

The lifetime risk of a man developing cancer of the larynx or voice box is 1 in 167, while for a woman that risk is 1 in 714, according to the American Cancer Society.

Cook also told Reuters that gender differences in exposure to carcinogens to include tobacco smoke and viral infections play a role in the rate disparity.

The researchers pointed out that there wasn't a single cause for the rate disparity, but that influences include differences in behavior of the tumor, cancer screening for people without symptoms, presence of other illnesses and whether patients sought health-care services, according to Reuters.