Women underrepresented in cancer research, U-M s...( ANN ARBOR Mich. Women are under-re...),Health
ANN ARBOR, Mich. Women are under-represented in clinical cancer research published in high-impact journals, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Taking into account the incidence of particular types of cancer among women, studies included a smaller proportion of women than should be expected. The analysis looked specifically at studies of cancer types that were not gender specific, including colon cancer, oral cancers, lung cancer, brain tumors and lymphomas.
The authors looked at 661 prospective clinical studies with more than 1 million total participants. Results of this study appear online in the journal Cancer and will be published in the July 15 print issue.
"In the vast majority of individual studies we analyzed, fewer women were enrolled than we would expect given the proportion of women diagnosed with the type of cancer being studied. We're seeing it across the board in all cancer types," says study author Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., assistant professor of radiation oncology at the U-M Medical School.
"It's so important that women are appropriately represented in research. We know there are biological differences between the sexes, as well as social and cultural differences. Studies need to be able to assess whether there are differences in responses to treatment, for example, between women and men," she adds.
The National Institutes of Health's Revitalization Act of 1993 explicitly calls out the importance of including women in clinical research, noting that clinical trials should enroll adequate numbers of women to allow for subgroup analysis.
The U-M researchers found that studies reporting government funding did include higher numbers of women participants, but the impact was modest 41 percent, compared to 37 percent for studies not receiving government funding.
Traditionally, researchers were told not to include
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| Contact: Nicole Fawcett nfawcett@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System Source:Eurekalert |
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