Cancer patients who also have diabetes experience higher rates of mortality, according to a study in Diabetologia and covered in MedPage Today.
Researchers analyzed data of all cancer patients in Denmark between 1995 and 2009, approximately 426,000 patients. Of those patients, approximately 42,000 were diagnosed with diabetes before they were diagnosed with cancer.
Male cancer patients who were diagnosed with diabetes for at least two years and were treated with insulin had a 3.7 times higher mortality rate one year after cancer diagnosis than non-diabetic male cancer patients. Female patients had a 4.4 times higher mortality rate than non-diabetic female patients.
Researchers suggest the higher mortality risk may be linked to the increased burden of comorbidity, a delayed cancer diagnosis due to masked symptoms or an effect of insulin lowering glucose levels and producing a more aggressive cancer, according to the report.
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