Diabetes is associated with deaths from lung cancer, but also increases the risk of death due to other cancers and complications.
Highlights
- Diabetes doubles the risk for all-cause mortality and non-lung cancer mortality among heavy smokers.
- Women with diabetes have an increased risk of lung-cancer mortality, but not men.
One in four people with diabetes doesn't know he or she has it. Having diabetes can also put people at risk for numerous other health complications.
"In our study, we found a statistically significant link between diabetes and all-cause deaths, non-lung cancer deaths and lung cancer deaths in women," said Kavita Garg, M.D., professor of radiology from the University of Colorado - Denver.
For the study, Dr. Garg and colleagues looked at data from 53,454 participants in the NLST and identified 5,174 participants who reported having diabetes at screening.
They conducted an analysis of the relative risk for overall mortality, lung cancer mortality, and non-lung cancer mortality associated with diabetes, adjusting for age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and pack-years of smoking. Over the course of the study, there were 3,936 total deaths, including 1,021 from lung cancer and 826 from cancers not of the lung.
"We found that diabetes doubles the risk for all-cause mortality and non-lung cancer mortality among heavy smokers," Dr. Garg said. "We also found that women with diabetes have an increased risk of lung-cancer mortality, but did not find the same effect in men."
"Patients have to take care of their diabetes to maximize the benefit of CT screening for lung cancer," she said. "It truly makes a magnitude of difference in mortality risk."
Source-Medindia