A new study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that recent-onset type 2 diabetes may be early expression of pancreatic cancer. Diabetes was associated with a more than twofold higher risk of pancreatic cancer in African Americans and Latinos, but recent-onset diabetes was associated with a 2.3 fold greater increase in risk of pancreatic cancer than long-standing diabetes. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal cancers, with a five-year survival rate of only 8 percent.
This is because the vast majority of pancreatic cancer patients (some 80 percent of them) are diagnosed at a late stage. Identification of high-risk people and ability to detect pancreatic cancer earlier would likely improve patient outcomes. Diabetes has been consistently associated with pancreatic cancer in previous studies, with a twofold higher risk of…
