Differences between male and female are both debated and celebrated. The Bottle Rockets sang, “Now everybody knows there’s a difference/Between a woman and a man.” John Gray’s book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus quickly soared to bestseller status. And the French immortalized the declaration vive la difference! (long live the difference!)

For better or worse, most people these days don’t hold with the view that the sex you’re born with predetermines your path in life—a view expressed as “biology is destiny”. However, there may some inherent differences between men and women that can only be accounted for by their biology. For instance, a January 2024 paper in the British Medical Journal Oncology reports a new test for early cancer detection based on a set of sex-specific proteins.

The test is part of a new biology science called proteomics, defined as the study of the interactions, function, composition, and structures of proteins and their cellular activities.^[i] A hot topic in prostate cancer (PCa) diagnosis is genomics, but the two analyses differ in content. According to IDEX Health & Science, “While both concepts are similar, the main difference between genomics and proteomics is that genomics is the study of the entire set of genes in the genome of a cell, and proteomics is the study of the entire set of proteins produced by the cell.” Each approach sheds light on the link between disease and genes, but they utilize different physical components.

The 2024 study by Budnik, et al. aimed to develop a novel proteome-based multi-cancer screening test that can detect early-stage cancers with high accuracy.”^[ii] They began with blood samples from 440 people, some of whom were healthy while others had been diagnosed with 18 various early stage solid tumor cancers. From the blood samples, the team derived 3000 high and low abundance proteins, then whittled it down using a multi-step statistical analysis. Thus, they “… identified a limited set of sex specific proteins that could detect early-stage cancers and their tissue of origin with high accuracy.”

The limited set consisted of 10 sex-specific proteins for men and 10 for women, and the accuracy for detecting Stage One cancer with 99% specificity was:

• 93% of cancers among males
• 84% of cancers among females.

Furthermore, enlarging the panel of proteins allowed over 80% accuracy in determining the tissue of origin for particular tumors. Notably, nearly all the proteins were in the “low-concentration” range in the blood samples. A news report about the study quotes from the article, “These results provide a foundation for future research and emphasize the potential of proteomic analysis in revolutionizing cancer diagnosis at the population level.”

It seems logical to differentiate protein signatures from males and females in looking for ways to catch tumor cancers early. Since there are sex-specific cancers like prostate and breast disease, this hints at potential biological differences in cancer processes. The authors point to the significance of their proteome-based diagnostic test which:

… outperforms existing technologies, providing a more efficient approach for early cancer detection. This could reshape screening guidelines, making this plasma [blood] test a standard part of routine check-ups. Moreover, the identification of low-abundance proteins and sex specific protein signatures as sensitive biomarkers opens new avenues of research in proteomics and cancer biology.

Here’s a personal question: If such a blood test became widely available, would you want it done as part of an annual wellness visit? Would you want to know as early as possible if cancer was growing in your body? The results of Budnik study have huge implications for potential screenings for men and women. This brings me back to the topic of male-female differences. It’s fascinating that a cancer detection test can be tailored to one sex or the other. Biology may not be destiny, but if it helps avoid fate in the form of cancer, I can only say vive la difference.

NOTE: This content is solely for purposes of information and does not substitute for diagnostic or medical advice. Talk to your doctor if you are experiencing pelvic pain, or have any other health concerns or questions of a personal medical nature.

References

[i] Al-Amrani S, Al-Jabri Z, Al-Zaabi A, Alshekaili J, Al-Khabori M. Proteomics: Concepts and applications in human medicine. World J Biol Chem. 2021 Sep 27;12(5):57-69.
[ii] Budnik B, Amirkhani H, Forouzanfar MH, et al. Novel proteomics-based plasma test for early detection of multiple cancers in the general population. BMJ Oncology 2024;3:e000073