Preexisting Type 2 Diabetes Tied to Later Stage of Cancer Diagnosis

FRIDAY, Dec. 2, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Individuals with type 2 diabetes face an increased risk for advanced tumor stage at cancer diagnosis, particularly for nonscreenable cancers, according to a study presented at the annual European Breast Cancer Conference, held from Nov. 16 to 18 in Barcelona, Spain.

Anna Jansana, Ph.D., from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and colleagues examined whether preexisting cardiometabolic diseases are associated with stage at cancer diagnosis. The analysis included 400,577 participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort with an incident diagnosis of cardiometabolic diseases prior to cancer.

The researchers found that during a median 15 years of follow-up, there were 11,945 incident cancers, of which 4.8 percent were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, 7.1 percent were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and 1.3 percent were diagnosed with both. When excluding screenable cancers (breast and colorectal), individuals with type 2 diabetes were more likely to be diagnosed with metastatic cancer at diagnosis versus individuals with neither diabetes nor cardiovascular disease (odds ratio, 1.26).

“The good news is that for patients with breast or colorectal cancer, the national screening programs seem to be detecting cancer often before it has started to spread, both for those with and without preexisting diagnoses of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Our findings underline the importance of participating in screening when invited,” Jansana said in a statement. “However, for cancers for which there are no national screening programs, our results may prompt policymakers to broaden the scope of public health recommendations to encompass patients affected by cardiometabolic diseases and cancer.”