Diabetes does not shorten cancer survival
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SAN DIEGO — Among nearly 4,000 adults with five common types of cancer plus diabetes, diabetes did not affect overall cancer survival, and cancer did not worsen glycemic control, according to study data.
“Clinicians may have anecdotal experience suggesting that coexisting diabetes and cancer adversely affect one another. However, our data shows the opposite, at least in the outcomes analyzed,” Nina J. Karlin, MD, a consultant in the division of hematology/oncology in the department of internal medicine at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, told Healio.
Karlin and colleagues analyzed data from cancer registries and electronic health records, from a single health care system with locations in the Southwest, Southeast and Midwest. The cohort included 7,868 adults (mean age, 67 years; 90% white) with solid organ cancers diagnosed between 2012 and 2018: 34% had prostate cancer, 23% lung cancer, 18% breast cancer, 17% pancreatic cancer and 8% colon cancer. Half of the cohort (n = 3,934) also had diabetes, with mean HbA1c 6.9% and mean glucose level 139 mg/dL vs. mean glucose level 103 mg/dL among those without diabetes (P < .001).
Researchers observed no significant differences in overall survival between the groups with and without diabetes either for cancer types individually or combined. In the year following cancer diagnosis, mean glucose levels declined among patients with and without diabetes (P < .001). Among those with diabetes, HbA1c decreased significantly for each cancer type (P = .004), whereas mean glucose level was different for individual cancer types and highest for those with pancreatic cancer and lung cancer (P < .001).
“Our clinical findings should be reassuring to providers who treat patients with diabetes and cancer,” Karlin said. “However, continued study is needed to confirm our findings in more diverse population groups.”
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Karlin N, et al. Cancer, diabetes, survival and glycemic control: A large multisite analysis. Presented at: American Association of Clinical Endocrinology Annual Scientific and Clinical Conference; May 12-14, 2022; San Diego.
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