Diabetes May be Clue to Pancreatic Cancer

[Angel]

A recent study by the Mayo Clinic may provide help in diagnosing pancreatic cancer earlier.

Researchers looked at the CT scans of 23 pancreatic cancer patients taken before their diagnosis for unrelated reasons. Half of the patients had diabetes and saw the beginning of their diabetes over six months before they were diagnosed with cancer.

"Our goal with this study was to establish a timeline for the progression of pancreatic cancer, especially in relation to the development of new-onset diabetes," reports gastroenterologist Suresh Chari, M.D., chief author of the study.

Of the 23 patients, 14 could recall the date their diabetes began. Of these 14, the average diagnosis time for pancreatic cancer was five months after the onset of diabetes. Scans done six months or more before diagnosis showed not a single sign of cancer.

Pancreatic cancer often shows no symptoms until its advanced stages, making early detection difficult and therefore the opportunity for surgery small. The clues provided in the study could help provide an earlier diagnosis and a better chance of being able to treat a patient with surgery.

Although the data is helpful, a drawback lies in the fact that type 2 diabetes is much more widely seen than diabetes as a result of pancreatic cancer.

The long-term goal of the research is to find other methods of detecting pancreatic cancer, but Dr. Chari says the immediate goal "is to determine whether the pancreatic cancer is actually producing something that is causing a unique form of diabetes."

She reports, "If that's the case, we want to identify that 'something' to differentiate between pancreatic cancer-induced diabetes and regular type 2 diabetes."