Diabetes Increases Cancer Surgery Risk
Reported March 31, 2010
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — People with diabetes who undergo cancer surgery are more likely to die in the month following their operations.
A new study finds that newly diagnosed cancer patients — particularly those with colorectal or esophageal tumors — who also have type 2 diabetes have a 50 percent greater risk of death following surgery. Roughly 20 million Americans, or about 7 percent of the population, are believed to have diabetes, and the numbers continue to grow.
“Diabetic patients, their oncologists and their surgeons should be aware of the increased risk when they have cancer surgery,” study leader Hsin-Chieh “Jessica” Yeh, Ph.D., assistant professor of general internal medicine and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was quoted as saying. “Care of diabetes before, during and after surgery is very important. It should be part of the preoperative discussion.
“When people are diagnosed with cancer, the focus often is exclusively on cancer, and diabetes management may be forgotten,” Dr. Yeh said. “This research suggests the need to keep a dual focus.”
The risk picture presented by Dr. Yeh and her colleagues emerged from a meta-analysis of 15 previously published medical studies that included information about diabetes status and mortality among patients after cancer surgery. Dr. Yeh said the analysis could not determine why cancer patients with diabetes are at greater risk of death after surgery.
Some say one culprit could be infection.
“Both cancer and diabetes involve inflammation and infection,” Kelly O’Connor, R.D./L.D.N., of the Diabetes Center and Oncology at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., who is not associated with the study, told Ivanhoe. “Diabetes increases the risk of many diseases and affects almost every part of the body. If your blood sugar is not in control, I think recovery from any kind of surgery would be an issue.”
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Kelly O’Connor, R.D./L.D.N.; Diabetes Care, April 2010