Are diabetics victims of oral cancer?

Author(s): Muralidhara Yadiyal, Nandita Shenoy*, Ashok Shenoy, Junaid Ahmed

Abstract

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a serious condition with potentially devastating complications that affects the body as a whole including the oral cavity. Although DM is a global problem affecting millions of people both in the developed & the developing world, very little has been studied regarding its association with oral cancer. But recently few studies have shown a possible correlation between diabetes and oral pre malignancies. There have been studies that stated an association between positive history of diabetes and oral cancer in Indian population. The present study aimed at finding out a causal relationship between Diabetes Mellitus & Oral Cancer in a secondary & tertiary care teaching hospital setting. To find out the prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus in patients with Oral pre-cancer to establish a causal relationship between Diabetes Mellitus & Oral Cancer. To test this hypothesis Hospital based clinical study was conducted ad analyzed data of 150 oral pre-cancer/cancer patients of our hospital randomly to study the association between diabetes mellitus and pre-cancers and cancers. These patients were subjected to standard blood glucose tests. Results showed that out of 150 subjects only 12 had diabetes. Following statistical analysis it was found that there was no statistically significant correlation between oral pre-cancer and Diabetes Mellitus. With preliminary data, we conclude that there is no causal relation between Oral cancer and the presence of Diabetes Mellitus. The association in our study may have been lost because of possible reduced sugar intake and nutritional deficiency due to inability to eat. A separate study with newly diagnosed oral cancers that are not nutritionally compromised will have to be studied.

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