Prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus in Pancreatic Cancer Compared to Common Cancers (original) (raw)

Objectives-In pancreatic cancer (PaC) the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM), especially new-onset DM (≤ 36 months of PaC diagnosis), is high. To determine if this observation is unique to PaC, we compared the prevalence and characteristics of DM in lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer with PaC and non-cancer controls. Methods-We retrospectively reviewed medical records of 500 consecutive cancer patients (100 each with lung, breast, prostate, colorectal and PaC) and 100 non-cancer controls. Results-Patients with PaC (mean age: 71.6±9.4 years; 53% male) had a significantly (p<0.0001) higher prevalence of DM (68%) compared to age-matched patients with lung (71.6±9.4 years, 59% male, 19.6% DM), breast (71.6±9.6 years, 100% female, 19.4% DM), prostate (71.3±9.4 years, 100% male, 14.8% DM), and colorectal cancer (71.6±9.5 years, 56% male, 20.7% DM), and non-cancer controls (70.7±9.2 years, 57% male, 23.5% DM). Among PaC patients, 40% developed DM in the 36 months preceding the diagnosis of PaC, as compared to 3.3-5.7% in the other groups (p<0.0001). Conclusions-While the prevalence of DM in PaC is very high, DM prevalence in other common cancers is no different from that in non-cancer controls. In particular, new-onset DM is a phenomenon that is unique to PaC.