Dr Kirstin De Bruijn talks to ecancer at the 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC2013) about the link between diabetes and an increased risk of developing cancer.

Researchers performed a unique meta-analysis that excludes all other causes of death and found that diabetic patients not only have an increased risk of developing breast and colon cancer but an even higher risk of dying from them.

Dr De Bruijn, a PhD student in the Surgery Department at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), and colleagues analysed results from 20 trials that had taken place between 2007 and 2012, involving more than 1.9 million patients with breast or colon cancer, with or without diabetes.

They found that patients with diabetes had a 23% increased risk of developing breast cancer and a 38% increased risk of dying from the disease compared to non-diabetic patients.

Diabetic patients had a 26% increased risk of developing colon cancer and a 30% increased risk of dying from it compared to non-diabetic patients.

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