The High Prevalence of Short-Term Elevation of Tumor Markers Due to Hyperglycemia in Diabetic Patients

INTRODUCTION: The relationship between diabetes and cancer is uncertain. However, tumor markers in diabetic patients are significantly elevated. The prevalence of diabetic inpatients with elevation of tumor markers and its relationship to blood glucose is needed to be studied. METHODS: A total of 102 diabetic inpatients were included in this study. We collected information from diabetic inpatients and tested tumor markers. Patients with elevation of tumor markers were rechecked. RESULTS: We found that up to 73.3% of diabetic inpatients had one or more tumor markers elevated. The proportion of diabetic inpatients with higher than normal cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA 21–1) was 54.5%. Most of them did not return to normal after controlling the blood glucose. A short-term elevation of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was present in 15.8% of diabetic inpatients, and 19.8% of diabetic inpatients had a short-term elevation of carbohydrate antigen. CEA and carbohydrate antigen including CA19-9, CA72-4, CA125 and CA15-3 returned to normal or became significantly reduced within 2 weeks after good control of blood glucose. CONCLUSION: Our study showed that the elevation of tumor markers was common in diabetic inpatients, especially those with poor blood glucose control. It indicated that re-checking the tumor markers after controlling blood glucose might be better than conducting large-scale test for cancer.