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Stomach and Uterine Cancer Risk Higher in Diabetes

1 hour, 32 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...er_dc&printer=1

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Patients with type 1 diabetes have a higher risk of cancer than the general population, a Swedish study shows. The excess risk is most striking for malignancies of the stomach, cervix and the lining of the uterus (endometrium).

Dr. Weimin Ye, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and colleagues evaluated data from the Swedish Inpatient Register and the Swedish Cancer Register. They identified records for nearly 30,000 patients presumed to have type 1 diabetes, based on hospitalization for diabetes before age 31.

After discounting the first year after hospital discharge, there were 355 cases of cancer among the diabetic patients. Relative to the general population, this translated to an increased risk of 20 percent, the investigators report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (news - web sites).

For stomach cancer, the risk was not elevated until 15 years or more after the initial hospitalization for diabetes, when the risk jumped by more than threefold.

The increased risk for cervical cancer was 60 percent, and was similar before and after 15 years' follow-up.

During the first 14 years, diabetic women were 4.8 times more likely than the general population to develop endometrial cancer. Thereafter, the risk was still elevated, with an increased risk of more than twofold. In these women, the risk may be related to the fact that they also had a higher rate of irregular menstruation and fertility disorders, and where more likely to not have given birth.

The risk of cancer of the breast, colon and rectum, pancreas and kidney was unaffected by type 1 diabetes status.

Cancer risk is already known to be increased in patients with type 2 diabetes, but the risks of specific cancers differ from those associated with type 1 diabetes, the authors point out. For example, pancreatic cancer rates are higher among type 2 diabetes patients, which supports the theory that elevated insulin level is the cause.

SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, December 3, 2003.