Adherence to oral diabetes drugs may improve survival in diabetics with colorectal cancer

Jun 01, 2020

New Delhi, June 02 (ANI):Among patients with both colorectal cancer and diabetes in Korea, those who had high adherence to their oral diabetes medication had a significantly reduced risk of overall mortality compared with those with lower adherence, suggests a study. The study was published in the journal - Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. To conduct this retrospective cohort study, the researchers used information from the National Health Information Database, which has claims data for those who have national health insurance in Korea, from 2002 to 2016. Individuals who had diabetes and were diagnosed with colorectal cancer in this time frame were included in the study, resulting in a total study population of 33,841 participants. Patients were followed for an average of 4.7 years. To estimate patients' adherence to their oral antidiabetic medications, the researchers used prescription data to calculate the patients' proportion of days covered (PDC), which is defined as the number of days with medications on hand divided by the number of days in a specified time interval. Adherence to prescribed injectable medications, including insulin, was not measured. The researchers categorized oral medication adherence into two groups for comparison: patients with high adherence had a PDC of at least 80 per cent, while patients with low adherence had a PDC of less than 80 per cent. The researchers found that patients who received surgery, surgery plus radiotherapy, or surgery plus chemotherapy had a protective benefit if they had high adherence to oral antidiabetic medications.