PreOncology™ Founder Dr. Jose Barreau was featured in a MedPage Today article examining new national data on why men are diagnosed with cancer at a later stage than women.

The study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, analyzed more than 2.4 million patients across 30 nonreproductive cancers diagnosed between 2015 and 2022. Men had significantly higher odds of a later-stage diagnosis in two-thirds of the cancer types studied, with the largest disparities found in tongue, thyroid, and salivary gland cancers, where late-stage diagnosis occurred roughly twice as often as in women.

Senior Editor Charles Bankhead spoke with Dr. Barreau about the factors behind the gap. Dr. Barreau pointed to a combination of biological, behavioral, and healthcare utilization patterns. Men are generally less likely to maintain ongoing primary care relationships and often delay seeking evaluation until symptoms appear, a pattern compounded by traditional norms around masculinity and practical barriers like work schedules and access to care.

Dr. Barreau also spoke to what can help close the gap: moving away from generic, age-based screening guidelines toward a personalized understanding of individual risk. At PreOncology, this means factoring in genetics, family history, lifestyle, and medical history so that patients understand why a given screening recommendation applies specifically to them, and are more likely to follow through.

Read the full article on MedPage Today.