Diabetes common among cancer patients

The burden of diabetes is high among cancer patients, according to a new Japan study.

“This study provides the first evidence of its kind on the incidence and prevalence of cancer in patients with pre-existing diabetes,” researchers said.

Accessing population-based cancer registries, researchers found 125,910 incident cancer cases in men, and 84,610 in women, with pre-existing diabetes. This led to crude incidence rates of 2,277.7 and 1,293.2 cases per 100,000, respectively.

In comparison, there were 438,620 and 327,690 incident cancer cases in nondiabetic men and women, respectively, with corresponding crude rates of 978.1 and 684.9 per 100,000.

Furthermore, 5-year estimates showed that the prevalence of pre-existing diabetes in men with cancer at any site was 21.8 percent, and 19.4 percent for their women counterparts. Stratifying according to tumour site, researchers found that diabetes was highest among men with liver (32.9 percent) and colon (27.3 percent) cancer, and among women with pancreatic (37.0 percent) and liver (30.3 percent) cancer.

Among those with pre-existing diabetes, age appeared to be an important factor in cancer prevalence, such that those who were older had greater malignancy burdens. Cancers at any site became rapidly more common after the age of 45 years, reaching its peak prevalence of 24.9 percent in those ≥75 years of age. This remained true in both men and women.

“With the growing number of patients with diabetes, prevention and management of multimorbidity in cancer patients warrant further attention by health practitioners and policy-makers,” said the researchers.