Sex and Gender in Orthopaedic Research

Abstract

ersonalized medicine requires consideration of the biologic, psychologic, environmental, and socioeconomic factors that impact a patient's health. While more complex, this type of care is more comprehensive 1 and more likely to provide the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. However, provision of more personalized care is predicated on and requires a research base that takes into consideration individual factors that impact health. Sex and gender are 2 of those important factors. Lack of data in this area, especially as these impact women's health, has led to the phenomenon of "medical gaslighting," in which patient concerns are dismissed or not fully explored, often leading to poorer outcomes. Medical gaslighting is often a result of inadequate research (or education) on conditions in which presenting symptoms in women are different from those typically described in the literature (often only or primarily including men participants) 2 .Sex and gender have been found to impact all health conditions, in terms of risk factors, prevention, presentation, and treatment outcomes, for which these variables have been evaluated. As noted by the Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Medicine) in 2001 3 , "every cell has a sex," indicating differences between females and males at the cellular and molecular levels. This challenged the historic view that females differed from males only in terms of reproduction. Sex reflects the biologic components of health and the impact of sex chromosomes and hormones on anatomy, physiology, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and risks of conditions or diseases. Gender refers to social constructs that impact roles Scan here to go to Proceedings from the Sex and Gender Research in Orthopaedics Symposium Disclosure: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R13AR082710. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest form is provided with the online version of the article (http://links.lww.com/JBJS/I70).