Type 2 diabetes mellitus, insulin‐use and risk of bladder cancer in a large cohort study

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is associated with increased bladder cancer incidence in some, but not all, studies. Many studies had limited statistical power and few examined risk by insulin-use, duration of diabetes or cancer stage. We examined the association between T2DM and bladder cancer incidence in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort, a large prospective study with information on insulin-use and duration of diabetes. Diabetes and insulin-use were ascertained from a questionnaire at study enrollment in 1992 or 1993 and updated in 1997 and every 2 years thereafter. During follow-up through 2007, 1,852 cases of incident bladder cancer were identified among 172,791 participants. Multivariable adjusted relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using extended Cox regression modeling. There were no associations of T2DM with the risk of bladder cancer overall (RR = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.87-1.17), noninvasive disease (RR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.76-1.14) or invasive disease (RR = 1.13, 95% CI: 0.91-1.40). Compared to participants without T2DM, risk of invasive bladder cancer was higher among participants who had had T2DM for >15 years (RR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.09-2.43) and among those using insulin (RR = 1.64, 95% CI: 1.18-2.27). These results do not support an association of T2DM with overall bladder cancer incidence, but do suggest positive associations of long-term T2DM and insulin-use or other factors correlated with severe diabetes, with invasive bladder cancer incidence.