Sex and survival in non-small cell lung cancer: A nationwide cohort study

To in detail delineate sex differences in non-small cell lung cancer outcome and investigate possible underlying drivers.

We performed a nationwide, population-based cohort study using data on all incident cases of lung squamous cell carcinoma (n = 10,325) and adenocarcinoma (n = 23,465) recorded in the Swedish Lung Cancer Register in 2002-2016. Flexible parametric models were applied to compute adjusted female-to-male hazard ratios (aHRs) and standardized survival proportions over follow-up including age, calendar year, education, marital status, birth country, health care region, performance status, smoking history, comorbidities, and tumor location in the final model.

Women presented with better performance status, were younger, and more often never-smokers. Women with adenocarcinoma also had lower comorbidity burden, less advanced stage, and were more often EGFR positive. Men with adenocarcinoma had a consistently poorer lung cancer-specific survival across stage; HR 0.69; 95% CI 0.63-0.76 (stage IA-IIB) to 0.94; 95% CI 0.88-0.99 (stage IIIB-IV), remaining largely unchanged after adjustments; aHR 0.74; 95% CI 0.66-0.82 to 0.84; 95% CI 0.81-0.87. The same pattern was observed in squamous cell carcinoma, except in stage IIIA disease, where we found no sex differences in survival.

Men with non-small cell lung cancer have a consistently poorer prognosis, even after careful adjustments for a wide range of prognostic factors. While the pattern was similar in both squamous cell and adenocarcinoma, it was larger and more consistent in the latter.