The Florida Lung Doctors have found a fascinating Norwegian study which deduced that lung cancer patients with diabetes are living longer than patients without diabetes. To reach this curious conclusion, scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Trondheim University analyzed 1,677 lung cancer cases from the Nord-Trøndelag Health study (HUNT.)
They coordinated with the pemetrexed gemcitabine (PEG) study as well as the Norwegian Lung Cancer Biobank study. This was the first combined study involving a large, stable group of patients who were suitable for investigating lung cancer, diabetes and survival. Researchers found:
The one year survival for patients with diabetes and lung cancer was 43% compared to the 28% with lung cancer alone.
The two year survival rate was 19% versus 11%.
The three year prolonged survival rate in patients with lung cancer and diabetes mellitus was 3% as opposed to 1%.It is important to note that these researchers did not attempt to explain these findings. They merely concluded that “the survival benefit warranted more study.” Perhaps more importantly, they claimed that diabetes should not exclude standard lung cancer treatments from patients.
They published their discoveries in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, stating significantly that, “Standard therapy should not be withheld from patients with diabetes mellitus provided they are otherwise fit, even if it may be considered a significant comorbidity.”
These experts said, “The fact that patients with diabetes mellitus showed a lower frequency of metastatic diseases may partly explain the survival benefit in patients with diabetes mellitus, because the majority of the patients with lung cancer die of metastasis and not of the primary tumor.” (Read more facts and statistics here.)
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