Women may be more susceptible to lung cancer and the disease affects women differently; now, scientists are asking if the hormone estrogen plays a role, the Associated Press reported May 29.

Breast cancer gets more attention, but lung cancer kills 72,000 U.S. women annually -- more than breast, ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancer combined. Lung-cancer rates among women have remained high even as the disease has declined among men.

There are other important gender differences, as well: women often get different types of lung cancer than men, and are more likely to get the disease even if they never smoked. On the other hand, survival rates are higher among women with the disease.

Kathy Albain, a lung-cancer specialist at Loyola University Health System, is heading a research team that is looking at differences in lung cancer between men and women and whether hormones like estrogen, genes, or other factors play a role. University of Pittsburgh pharmacologist Jill Siegfried said that estrogen may fuel cancer growth in the lungs much as it does in the breasts, and that blocking estrogen could help cancer treatment succeed.

Researchers are now testing whether giving the anti-estrogen drug Faslodex along with the lung-cancer drug Tarceva improves outcomes. Another experiment focuses on the drug Xyotax, a cousin to Taxol, that seems to work best in women with high estrogen levels.