Journal article
Sex differences in cancer incidence: prospective analyses in the UK Biobank
- Abstract:
-
Background
We examined differences in cancer incidence between women and men and the extent to which these persisted after accounting for established risk factors.
Methods
Prospective analyses in the UK Biobank to examine associations between sex and risk of 15 cancers (and 13 subtypes) using minimal and multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression models. Multivariable models were stratified for age, deprivation index, and region, and adjusted for ethnicity, qualifications, height, BMI, smoking status, alcohol, and site-specific risk factors.
Results
During 10.5 (SD 2.2) years of follow-up, 32,315 incident cancers across 15 anatomical sites (58.1% in women) were identified in 470,771 individuals (53.8% women). Some differences in cancer risk between the sexes attenuated to the null in the multivariable-adjusted models, but men remained at greater risk than women for cancers at eight sites: oesophageal adenocarcinoma (hazard ratio 5.45; 95% confidence interval, 4.18-7.12), gastric cardia (3.65; 2.48-5.38), bladder (3.47; 2.85-4.24), oral cavity (2.06; 1.69-2.51), liver (1.91; 1.48-2.47), kidney (1.77; 1.51-2.09), rectum (1.70; 1.47-1.96), and leukaemia (1.43; 1.21-1.69). Men had lower risks for cancers of the breast, thyroid (0.36; 0.26-0.49), anus (0.41; 0.26-0.64), and lung adenocarcinoma (0.72; 0.62-0.84).
Conclusion
Further research on these sex differences in risk may provide insights into cancer aetiology.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Supplementary materials, pdf, 599.6KB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 608.0KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41416-025-03028-y
Authors
+ Cancer Research UK
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/054225q67
- Grant:
- C16077/A29186
- C8221/A29017
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- British Journal of Cancer More from this journal
- Volume:
- 133
- Issue:
- 2
- Pages:
- 216 – 226
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2025-05-08
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-04-10
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1532-1827
- ISSN:
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0007-0920
- Pmid:
-
40341249
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
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2123279
- Local pid:
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pubs:2123279
- Deposit date:
-
2025-05-14
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Khan et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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