Routes to colorectal cancer diagnosis for individuals with diabetes

Project Reference Number – 0021

Principal Investigator – Rebecca Birch

Plain Language summary - How people are diagnosed with cancer is known to have a strong link to how well they do. Patients diagnosed as an emergency are less likely to survive that those who are diagnosed with a cancer screening programme. Some studies have suggested that there might be a link between having diabetes and how likely people are to be diagnosed through a cancer screening programme, however not all studies have suggested the same relationship and there have been no studies looking at this in the whole of the English population.

A large proportion of those with colorectal cancer are thought to have diabetes meaning that this is important to consider in this population. This study aims to see if there is a link between having diabetes and how people are diagnosed with cancer.