Sex is one of the most fundamental biological variables, with a profound impact on tumor incidence, mortality, treatment response and prognosis, making it a critical consideration for precision oncology. Despite its well-established role in tumors, sex bias is often overlooked in both basic research and clinical practice. Our understanding of sex disparities in tumors, especially in non-reproductive tumors and non-malignant components, remains limited, necessitating a comprehensive investigation of sexual dimorphism in cancer. To address this gap, we developed the SexTumorDB database, an integrated resource containing RNA sequencing profiles of non-reproductive tumors at single-cell resolution. SexTumorDB covers 13 cancer types with the highest incidence in either males or females, encompassing 2,014,043 cells from 532 samples, including 319 male and 213 female samples. The SexTumorDB datasets were rigorously curated, processed, and standardized. By making this resource publicly available through online repositories and web applications, we aim to advance the understanding of sex disparities in the tumor microenvironments (TMEs) and foster the development of sex-specific anticancer treatment strategies in the future.
Sun et al. (2026) studied this question.