The “unending relationship” between diabetes and pancreatic cancer

Everyone is familiar with diabetes, and with the development of society, people's lifestyles have also changed greatly, including an increasing number of bad habits such as eating and drinking too much, working more and moving less. The incidence of diabetes in my country has also increased rapidly in recent years, and the incidence of pancreatic cancer has also increased accordingly.

Moreover, data show that the incidence of pancreatic cancer in diabetic patients is about 15% within 3 years after onset of diabetes, which is 1.5 to 7 times higher than that of normal people. This is a terrifyingly high statistic. It can be said that the golden time for diagnosing pancreatic cancer is within three years after onset of diabetes.

Clinical observation and animal experiments have also confirmed that some diabetic patients have chronic pancreatic dysfunction, which causes chronic stimulation to acinar cells and eventually leads to pancreatic cancer. In addition, some pancreatic cancer cases appear as diabetic patients when they first develop the disease. Diabetic pancreatic cancer is more common in middle-aged and elderly patients with mild to moderate type 2 diabetes, and more common in men than in women.

For diabetic pancreatic cancer patients, early diagnosis and early treatment are crucial. Such patients are generally in poor physical condition and are therefore not suitable for surgical treatment. However, the inability to undergo surgery does not mean that it cannot be cured. For some cancers, radiotherapy can do what surgery cannot do. What surgery can do, radiotherapy can do better because it is less invasive and can improve the quality of life of patients. Using modern radiotherapy to treat diabetic pancreatic cancer can shrink tumors, relieve pain, improve overall condition, improve quality of life, and prolong the patient's survival.

Therefore, for patients with new diabetes who are not obese and have no family history, a series of examinations including pancreatic juice cell examination should be performed regularly within 3 years after onset of the disease to detect pancreatic cancer as early as possible.