Implications for practice and research

• Lung cancer may potentially be added to the list of cancers directly related to diabetes or insulin treatment.

• Current evidence is insufficient to consider lung cancer risk as the basis for selecting appropriate diabetes therapy.

• Diabetes patients who require insulin therapy for metabolic control should continue to be treated with insulin.

Context

Considerable epidemiological evidence suggests that type 2 diabetes is associated with increased risk of developing various types of malignancies, most notably cancers of the liver, pancreas, endometrium, colorectum, breast and bladder. In contrast, type 2 diabetes has previously not been widely thought to be linked with lung cancer.1 The relation of diabetes to lung cancer …