Gender and sex differences: publications on Web of Science 2000-2016

The chart with the number of international publications concerning gender or sex differences from 2000 to present highlights the progressive increase of works published in time on “gender differences” or “sex differences”, thus indicating a growing interest of the scientific community in these topics. (Figure 1)




An analysis was also carried out on international publications relating to gender and sex differences in various pathologies through the Web of Science.

To this end, it was necessary to take into account all of the works published on sex and gender because the two terms are often used wrongly and without any distinction. The chart (Figure 2) demonstrates how research is progressively focussing on the role played by gender and sex differences in the onset and progression of various pathologies. Specifically, the total of published studies on gender and sex differences in cardiovascular diseases and cancer has increased by about 30 and 15 times respectively in the past sixteen years.

It should be noted that, as regards cancer, studies on typically male or female tumours were excluded. Finally, though with a lower incremental rate, also research on gender and sex differences in psychiatric, autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases is increasingly attracting greater interest.

Rosa Vona

Gender Medicine Referral Centre,
Italian National Health Institute, Rome (Italy)