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Under-representation of women in high-impact published clinical cancer research
Cancer, 06/11/09

Jagsi R et al. - In a study to examine the issue of adequate representation of women in research, it was concluded that women were under-represented as participants in recently published, high-impact studies of non-sex-specific cancers. Studies that received government funding included a higher proportion of female subjects.

Methods

Cancer research published in 8 journals in 2006 was reviewed.
Percentage of women among study participants was compared with the proportion expected from population-based estimates of sex-specific cancer incidence, using binomial tests.
Differences were assessed in sex distribution of participants by funding source, author sex, and focus of research with the Student t test, and in a linear regression model controlling for cancer type.

Results

1534 cancer research articles were identified, of which 661 (representing 1,096,098 participants) were prospective clinical studies and were analyzed further.
For all 7 non-sex-specific cancer types assessed, the majority of studies analyzed included a lower proportion of women than the proportion of women among pts having cancer of that type in the general population.
Among studies focusing on cancer treatment, women constituted a significantly lower overall proportion of participants in the analyzed studies than expected for 6 of 7 non-sex-specific cancer types.
Among non-sex-specific studies, mean percentage of participants who were women was 38.8%.
Non-sex-specific studies reporting government funding had a higher percentage of female participants.
In a regression model controlling for cancer type, lack of government funding and focus on cancer treatment were found to be independent significant predictors of a lower percentage of female participants.

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