New perceptions of interrelationship between pancreatic cancer and diabetes

Pancreatic cancer is strongly associated with diabetes mellitus. About 80% of the patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma have glycometabolic alterations. On the contrary, patients with new-onset diabetes mellitus within 1-3 years have a significant increased risk of pancreatic neoplasm up to 5-8 folds. Long-standing diabetes increases the risk for pancreatic cancer, while pancreatic cancer also provokes the development of diabetes mellitus. The pancreatic cancer-induced glucose tolerance impairment is supposed to be paraneoplastic. However, the pathogenesis of this phenomenon remains unclear, which might be the key to develop novel therapeutic strategies. New-onset diabetes may indicate subclinical pancreatic neoplasm and potential reliable biomarkers are still to be explored.