Objective: To analyse the association between pancreatic cancer and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.
Design: Cohort study of fatal pancreatic cancer with 17 years of follow-up.
Setting: Working men in Paris.
Participants: 6,988 men aged 44-55 years employed by a government agency. Following a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test, subjects were classed at baseline, according to the WHO criteria as normoglucose tolerant, impaired glucose tolerant or diabetic. Known diabetic patients were grouped with the latter.
Results: Among the 312 diabetic subjects (both known and newly diagnosed) the death rate from pancreatic cancer was 64 per 100,000 person years, and 28 and 18 per 100,000 person years among the 684 impaired glucose tolerant and 5,992 normoglycaemic subjects respectively. After the exclusion of deaths during the first five years of follow-up, a possible marker of occult cancer at baseline, the relative risk of fatal pancreatic cancer in diabetic versus normoglycaemic men was 4.9 (95% CI, 1.3 to 18 after adjustment for age and tobacco consumption).