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Women with advanced lung cancer have a better survival rate than men, but this is only true for women over the age of 60. For women under the age of 60, the survival rate is the same as men's.

"We don't know why, but the hypothesis is that age is acting as a surrogate for lower estrogen levels and those lower levels of estrogen may affect the metabolism of chemotherapy agents," said Regina Vidaver, Ph.D., executive director of the National Lung Cancer Partnership based in Madison, Wisc.

These findings were presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

At the meeting, researchers showed data that indicated that pre-menopausal estrogen levels were associated with a higher death rate among women receiving chemotherapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which makes up about 85 percent of all lung cancer cases.

In addition, women who have never smoked are more at risk for lung cancer than men who never smoked, with some research indicating that estrogen is again involved.