The interaction of gender and smoking on bladder cancer risks

Abstract

Purpose of review: Although smoking and gender are well-established bladder cancer (BCa) risk factors, a significant interaction with other risk factors could help in the identification of patterns for early detection and prevention strategies.

Recent findings: Smoking appears to be more strongly associated with BCa risk in women than in men, which could be related to differences in metabolism, smoking behavior, exposure patterns, and DNA repair mechanisms. BMI is associated with a higher risk of BCa with negligible difference between genders. The risk for BCa is increased in postmenopausal women, specifically in women with earlier menopausal age (<45 years). Other potential risk factors such as alcohol, arsenic exposure, and particulate matter inhalation seem to affect the genders differently.Female smokers experience a higher risk of disease recurrence after bacillus Calmette-Guérin therapy than their male counterparts. Lastly, smoking appears to negatively affect the outcome of radiotherapy in women, but not that of men.

Summary: Several lines of evidence point to an interaction between smoking and gender, whereas their impact on other potential risk factors remains to be elucidated. Identifying such differential effects could allow for gender-specific prevention, early detection, and treatment strategies.