About this Research Topic
Sex and gender differences are increasingly being explored in medical literature and specifically in oncology. Such differences have been identified with increasingly sophisticated approaches extending to various data types. However, barriers remain and actionable biomarkers that robustly define sex differences and extend these into targeted approaches to both data interpretation and patient management are currently lacking. The reasons for this are multifactorial including lack of and missing data, limited statistical analysis aimed specifically at the identification of sex differences and limited understanding of the biological implications of sex differences. An analysis of the state of data in oncology as connected to the biological understanding of sex and gender differences in cancer across cancer sites and domains ( diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, survivorship) will be presented in this topic.
The goal is to showcase sex and gender difference research by tumor site including in sites where one or the other sex is over or underrepresented and connect this to growing data and the placement of data analysis tool that will identify and harness sex differences with transferability to other aspects to medicine.
Each topic will be organised by cancer tumor sites as typically approached in guidelines and oncology departments to include the larger oncologic sites (central nervous system, head and neck, genitourinary, gastrointestinal, lung, hematology oncology) as well as sites that are sex specific (prostate, testicula, ovarian cancer) or have significant discrepancy in sex distribution (eg. breast cancer). Sex differences will be connected to biological triggers at each hierarchical level ( genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic) and to data in terms of data location (in both geographical as well storage sense), pockets of data growth and analysis and finally areas where sex difference data has crossed the boundaries from bench to bedside and/or is employed to alter management in the clinic.
The goal is to showcase sex and gender difference research by tumor site including in sites where one or the other sex is over or underrepresented and connect this to growing data and the placement of data analysis tool that will identify and harness sex differences with transferability to other aspects to medicine.
Each topic will be organised by cancer tumor sites as typically approached in guidelines and oncology departments to include the larger oncologic sites (central nervous system, head and neck, genitourinary, gastrointestinal, lung, hematology oncology) as well as sites that are sex specific (prostate, testicula, ovarian cancer) or have significant discrepancy in sex distribution (eg. breast cancer). Sex differences will be connected to biological triggers at each hierarchical level ( genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic) and to data in terms of data location (in both geographical as well storage sense), pockets of data growth and analysis and finally areas where sex difference data has crossed the boundaries from bench to bedside and/or is employed to alter management in the clinic.
Keywords: malignancy, biomarkers, response, prognosis, personalised medicine
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