RE: Smoking, Sex, and Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer: Steroid Hormone Receptors in Tumor Tissue (S0424)

We write regarding the article by Cheng and colleagues recently published in the Journal (1). Using data from 813 women and men with non–small cell lung cancer, they examined the associations between smoking, sex, and multiple hormone receptors in lung cancer. They found that lung tumors in women had lower cytoplasmic estrogen receptor (ER)–α and nuclear ER-β expression when compared with those in men. Smoking was associated with lower total progesterone receptor (PR) expression, but with higher cytoplasmic ER-α and ER-β, which were subsequently found to be associated with mortality risk. One their conclusions was that lower expression of nuclear ER-β in women supports the estrogen hypothesis in lung cancer etiology. While we acknowledge that this study represents an important contribution to this line of research, we have some reservations about the results and their interpretation.

https://ift.tt/2Hl5IHr