Biological sex and cancer

[RoyalCorgi]

From a Guardian article (where else):

"By looking at proteins in blood plasma, the experts were able to differentiate cancer samples from normal ones, and even distinguish between different types of cancers 'with high accuracy', they said. The research also found evidence that cancer protein signals were likely to be sex-specific."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/09/dna-test-can-detect-18-early-stage-cancers-scientists-say

So, biological sex is important in medicine. Who'd a thunk it?

The team wrote: “At stage I (the earliest cancer stage) and at the specificity of 99%, our panels were able to identify 93% of cancers among males and 84% of cancers among females.
“Our sex-specific localisation panels consisted of 150 proteins and were able to identify the tissue of origin of most cancers in more than 80% of cases.”

Nature and proteins do not care about ideology: I'll be interested to see how this progresses and if the researchers encounter difficulties in publishing their findings in the future.

Yet we have ‘equality’ at least in our imaginations. Why waste time looking at anything aside from the default human? /s

So a 7% false negative rate for men. But a 16% false negative rate for women.

In other words women, yet again, at higher risk of missed diagnosis.

I do seem to remember a lot of GC people hooting with glee when it was reported that covid-19 had different impacts on men and woman. Lots of smug "viruses don't care about ideology!" comments. Then it turned out the difference was likely down to levels of blood oestrogen, meaning trans women on HRT had the same risk profile as natal women, and trans men the same risk as natal men.

Wonder if this might be similar.

Also to add it's extremely nasty to use your GC ideology to mock cancer patients regardless.

'Hooting with glee' & 'smug' huh @PrawnLiberationFront?

Not how I remember it. How can you know if someone is 'hooting' in print, or if they are 'smug' or gleeful if you can't see them? Or did posters decorate their posts with suitably smug & gleeful emoji? Such strange leaps you make.

Nor am I convinced that TW, with their exogenous oestrogen at high doses as it has to act on a non-receptive body, have the same risk as women with our endogenous oestrogen. And you do know that you don't have to have hormone treatment to be trans?

No one here is mocking any medical patient. They are just pointing out that there are biological sex differences in medicine. This is well known, it's not something made up on Mumsnet.

Are you an endocrinologist, Rightsraptor? An oncologist? Any kind of medical professional? Because if you're not, I'm sorry to break it to you, but what you are or are not "convinced of" is as relevant as a toddler's opinion on calculus. Facts don't care about your feelings, as the saying goes, and insisting trans bodies should always be treated in line with their birth sex is demonstrably false and ideologically driven.

Please do point out where on this thread anyone has attempted to "mock cancer patients".
The only phrasing on this entire thread that I can see that could be construed as mocking is "hooting with glee" in your first post.

One of the main reasons for the difference in the effect if Covid on the two sexes is the greater immube response in females.

The protein by which viruses such as coronavirus are sensed is encoded on the X chromosome. Since females have two X chromisomes while males have only on, this protein is expressed at twice the dose on many immune cells in females compared to males, and the immune response is therefore amplified in females.

No amount of exogenous hormones will change a person's chromosomes

Are you an endocrinologist, Rightsraptor? An oncologist? Any kind of medical professional? Because if you're not, I'm sorry to break it to you, but what you are or are not "convinced of" is as relevant as a toddler's opinion on calculus.

Are you? A link would be good to whatever you are relying on.

I don't remember any hooting or gloating, just that sex matters.

And yes, the extra oestrogen that transwoman take is apparently going to increase risk for breast cancer and dementia due to them being cross sex hormones for their sex.

Would you mind quoting the comments that have "use your GC ideology to mock cancer patients regardless."?

Facts don't care about your feelings

Bloody hell, the irony!

I'm not mocking, I've just had Bc.

TW are 47 times more likely to develop Bc than men thanks to those cross sex hormones their bodies are not designed to handle.

So that's hormonally driven Bc. So they'd need hormonal treatments such as tamoxifen and anastrazole. Which aren't much fun I can tell you.

So - are you an endocrinologist as well? The thing is, we are not insisting that people should always be treated in line with their birth sex; but we are insisting that when there are differences between the sexes people who take cross-sex hormones can't always be treated in line with their aspired-to sex either.

Medical results which have been obtained about women can't safely or reliably be applied to transwomen taking oestrogen. Not unless the effects on transwomen taking oestrogen (or some other similar group of male patients taking oestrogen) have been separately investigated.

I do worry that a lot of trans people simply don't understand this, and that misunderstanding is physically dangerous for trans people.

One thing that strikes me about this is how important it is that all health records be searchable by biological sex. Which means biological sex has to listed for all patients.

....demonstrably false??? Oh FFS, can't we have some nuance here. It would seem to be astonishingly stupid not to take into account the whole picture of a patient's situation when determining cancer treatment. That surely means acknowledging their biological sex, and any exogenous hormones that are being taken. Why would a scientist or doctor do anything else?