Aims: Inflammation plays a crucial role in the interconnection between diabetes and cancer. Our study seeks to investigate the predictive value of inflammatory indices concerning overall survival (OS) among diabetic cancer patients.
Methods: We analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2020. Using four immune-related markers, we employed the log-rank method, multivariate Cox regression, and subgroup analysis to explore the predictive capacity of these markers for OS among adult individuals with diabetes and cancer.
Results: Our study identified four systemic immune-inflammatory indices that demonstrated significant predictive potential for OS among diabetic cancer patients, namely systemic immune-inflammation index, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (all p values < 0.05). Notably, these inflammatory biomarkers still maintain their predictive value after adjusting potential confounding factors. The analysis using restrictive cubic splines revealed significant non-linear relationships between inflammatory biomarkers and OS.
Conclusion: The findings presented in this study underscore the potential of inflammatory markers as prognostic indicators and their crucial role in enhancing risk assessment for diabetic patients with cancer.
Keywords: Cancer; Diabetes; Inflammation; Prediction.
© 2024. Springer-Verlag Italia S.r.l., part of Springer Nature.