Incidences of cancers in diabetic and non-diabetic hospitalized adult patients in Taiwan

Background: The study was to investigate the relationship between diabetes mellitus (DM), specific cancers, age, and gender. Methods: This was a retrospective study that examined the frequency of different forms of cancer among male and female patients with or without DM admitted to a single hospital in Taiwan between January 2009 and June 2010. Results: Of 101,002 study patients admitted to the hospital, 15,901 (15.74%) were diagnosed with DM and 16,748 (16.58%) with a malignancy. The frequency of DM differed between males and females (17.5% vs 14.2%; P < 0.001), and males had a higher cancer incidence than females (20.2% vs 13.5%; P < 0.001). Patients with DM had a greater frequency of cancer diagnosis than non-DM patients (18.1% vs 16.3%, respectively), with pancreatic, liver, uterine, urinary tract, lung, and secondary cancers being more frequent in DM compared with non-DM patients. In contrast, the proportion of patients with thyroid, esophagus, breast, NPC, and other cancers was lower in DM versus non-DM patients. Conclusions: This study found that DM was associated with the incidence of specific cancers and that males had a higher frequency of cancer than females. The association of DM and cancer depended upon cancer type, gender, and age.