In a new study from Yale School of Public Health, researchers found women are more likely to develop deadly right-sided colon cancer.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosis in the United States and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths.
The National Cancer Institute estimates 149,500 new cases in 2021 and 53,000 deaths.
More recently, researchers have learned that cancers on the colon’s right-hand segment, which ascends the right side of the abdomen, differ from cancers located on the segment descending alongside the abdomen’s left.
Researchers also found that these different locations led to different outcomes. People with right-sided colon cancer (RCC) had a 20% greater chance of dying than people with left-sided colon cancer (LCC).
Subdividing further, scientists found that left-sided cancers were split almost evenly between males and females (52% to 48%, respectively), but the more deadly right-sided type affected women much more—females account for 62% of RCCs, males just 38%.
In the study, the team explored the marked differences between right-sided colon cancer in males and females.
They extracted metabolites from a tumor sample and ran the metabolites through a mass spectrometer to get a survey of everything in the sample—perhaps 20,000 variables—which can be separated into various groups.
The researchers discovered that colorectal cancer cells on the right side generate metabolites that enable more aggressive growth in women, than in men.
They also determined that the colons of males and females produce different metabolites.
That insight led them to identify a distinct metabolic phenotype common among women with right-sided colon cancer.
The biggest difference is a large increase in asparagine, a common amino acid found in most proteins.
The team says asparagine might be involved in tumor growth in females. When right-sided colon tumors become starved for energy, they look for new sources.
In women, asparagine production goes into overdrive to help the tumor increase its uptake of the amino acids and fatty acids that fuel cell growth.
The team says drugs that remove asparagine from circulating blood, depriving tumor cells of fuel, are already being used against acute lymphocytic leukemia.
The team will test whether the drugs might be effective against right-side colon cancer.
They suggest a patient with early-stage colon cancer and elevated levels of asparagine could be treated more aggressively, perhaps with hormones.
If you care about colon cancer, please read studies about this vitamin level in the body linked to your colon cancer risk and findings of using this common drug before diagnosis may lower colon cancer death risk.
For more information about colon cancer and your health, please see recent studies about how to protect yourself from colon cancer and results showing that can aspirin lower colon cancer risk in older people? It depends on when you start.
One researcher of the study is Caroline Johnson, Ph.D.
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