Objective: To investigate the impact of diabetes mellitus (DM) on survival in patients with lung cancer.
Methods: This is a retrospective study of 1 096 patients died from lung cancer collected from clinical records in Chinese PLA General Hospital. Survival time of lung cancer with and without DM was compared using Log-rank analysis and Cox regression model.
Results: One hundred and eighty-one patients (16.5%) had DM. The median survival time of the lung cancer patients with DM was 9 months, whereas, the median survival time of the patients without DM was 8 months. Log-rank analysis showed that this difference was significant (P<0.05). Moreover, the 1-, 2-, and 3-year survival rate in lung cancer patients with and without DM were 43% vs 35%, 27% vs 17%, and 16% vs 10%, respectively. After adjusting for age, gender, histology, stage of lung cancer and treatment, Cox regression analysis showed that the hazard ratio for survival in lung cancer patients with DM was 0.74 (95%CI 0.61-0.89, P<0.05) compared with those without DM. In non-small-cell lung cancer(NSCLC)patients, the hazard ratio for survival in lung cancer patients with DM was 0.69 (95%CI 0.56-0.85, P<0.05). However, this association disappeared in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients. In advanced lung cancer patients (stage III-IV), diabetes was also a significant factor for survival (HR=0.74, 95%CI 0.61-0.91, P<0.05).
Conclusion: Patients with advanced NSCLC with DM have longer survival time compared with those without DM.