Volume 70 Number 4 September 2003	back to contents

From the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY.

Address all correspondence to Cynthia F. Caracta, M.D., F.C.C.P., Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of
Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Box 1232, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One East
100th Street, New York, NY 10029; E-mail: Cynthia.Caracta@msnyuhealth.org.

Based on a Grand Rounds presentation of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY on October 2, 2001, and updated February 2003.

ABSTRACT

Epidemiologic evidence points to gender-based differences in incidence, risk, histology, and pathogenesis of certain lung diseases in women as compared with men. Gender influences not only physiological differences, but also the social, economic, and cultural context in which men and women coexist. Central to these differences is the role of sex hormones, which may contribute to the pathogenesis of disease or serve as protective factors. This paper seeks to review the role of gender in major areas of pulmonary disease and explore the mechanisms that may underlie gender differences in asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and mycobacterial disease (tuberculosis and Mycobacterium avium intracellulare infection), on lung cancer.

KEY WORD

Antiestrogens, asthma, cigarette smoking, COPD, epidemiology, estrogens, lung cancer, mycobacteria, sex hormones, women.

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