Cancer death rates in the UK are more than one-third higher in men than in women, a new report says.
The stark contrast between the sexes is revealed in the latest survival figures from 2010.
In that year, 202 men per 100,000 died compared with 147 women per 100,000 – a 35% difference.
When gender-specific diseases, such as prostate and breast cancer, were excluded, men were 67% more likely to die.
Liver cancer death rates were twice as high in men, who also faced the risk of being killed by oesophageal cancer.
The difference may partly be explained by men developing hard-to-treat cancers such as those affecting the bladder, oesophagus and liver, according to Cancer Research UK, which produced the figures.
Each year around 82,500 men in the UK lose their lives to cancer, making it the leading cause of death in the male population.
The findings were presented yesterday at the Men's Health Forum conference in London.
Professor Alan White, from Leeds Metropolitan University, chairman of the Forum and co-author of the report, said: "The impact cancer has on younger men is often overlooked, but these are men whose life is cut too short by the disease.
"It's crucial that the NHS leads the way in taking a more proactive approach to prevent men both getting and dying from cancer prematurely."
A second report by Cancer Research UK showed that smoking remains the largest preventable cause of cancer in men, leading to 36,500 cases of new disease each year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article