Diabetes mellitus in intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm of the pancreas is associated with high-grade dysplasia and invasive carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: While the association between Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is well recognized, its importance in intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm of the pancreas (IPMN) is not well-defined. We sought to examine the associations of DM with degree of dysplasia and morphological subtypes in IPMN.

METHODS: In 454 patients with resected IPMN, we evaluated associations of DM with high-grade dysplasia (HGD), invasive carcinoma, precursor epithelial subtype (gastric, intestinal, oncocytic, pancreatobiliary), and histological type of invasive carcinomas (tubular, colloid, oncocytic) using logistic regression. We performed multivariate analyses adjusting for worrisome features and high-risk stigmata of malignancy in a subset of 289 patients with annotated radiological characteristics.

RESULTS: The prevalence of DM in our study was 34%. DM was significantly associated with HGD (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.02-4.01, P = 0.045) and invasive carcinoma (OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.08-3.87, P = 0.027) after adjusting for worrisome features. Compared to patients without DM, those with recent-onset DM (≤5 years before surgery) had 6.9-fold (95% CI 2.38-19.92, P < 0.001) higher risk of invasive carcinoma. DM was associated with increased likelihood of intestinal-type precursor epithelium (OR 1.63, 95% CI 1.07-2.47, P = 0.022) and colloid carcinomas (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.01-5.99, P = 0.047) CONCLUSION: Preoperative DM was associated with significantly higher risk of HGD and invasive carcinoma in resected IPMN, and risk of invasive carcinoma was highest in patients with recent-onset DM. Patients with DM were more likely to harbor intestinal-type IPMN and colloid carcinomas. Our findings suggest that a diagnosis of DM in patients with IPMN may warrant more aggressive surveillance.