Survival rates of women with carcinoma of the esophagus exceed those of men.

Postoperative complications, mortality and survival rates and nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) content of cancer cells for 212 male and 47 female patients with carcinoma of the esophagus were studied. There were no differences in age, site and length of carcinoma, histologic type, invasion to the adventitia, metastases to the lymph node, staging and postoperative complications. However, survival time for female patients was significantly longer than in males. In studies of cell nuclear DNA content, the incidence of more favorable DNA type (relatively regular in DNA distribution) was relatively high while the incidence of the unfavorable DNA type (widely scattered DNA distribution) was relatively low in female patients when compared with male patients. These findings suggest that tumor factors warrant attention when studying the clinical differences in males and females with carcinoma of the esophagus.