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The Association between Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Thyroid Cancer
Young-Gyun Seo1, Ho-Chun Choi2, Ah Reum An3
1Department of Family Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Anyang, Gyeonggi-do 14068, Republic of Korea.
Aim:
The incidence of thyroid cancer is increasing worldwide. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is also increasing. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the effect of T2DM on thyroid cancer.
Methods:
A case-control study was performed. A total of 415 healthy controls with thyroid ultrasound screening and physician consultation were selected from the Thyroid Cancer Longitudinal Study (T-CALOS). Among patients with thyroid cancer who were enrolled in T-CALOS, 415 patients were matched to the control group according to age and sex. We assessed the effects of T2DM, T2DM duration, and T2DM medication on thyroid cancer.
Results:
Women with T2DM had lower odds of thyroid cancer than women without T2DM (odds ratio [OR]: 0.40, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.20-0.81). Individuals receiving T2DM medication had higher odds of thyroid cancer compared to those without T2DM medication (OR: 5.21, 95% CI: 1.58-17.15). Individuals with T2DM duration <6 years had lower odds of thyroid cancer compared to those without T2DM (OR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.34-0.97).
Conclusions:
Individuals with early T2DM are presumed to have a low incidence of thyroid cancer, and this effect seems to last up to 6 years after diagnosis of T2DM.
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