URING THE PAST 20 YEARS THERE HAVE BEEN D highly conflicting views as to whether diabetes mellitus is more common among patients with endometrial carcinoma than among women who do not suffer from this disease. Several authors in Great Britain and the United States have reported a significant association between thse 2 disorders.l2936,42,59
However, an even greater number of publications have appeared in the United States supporting the contention that the incidence of diabetes is no higher in patients with endometrial carcinoma than in the general population.l6* 44-48, 60-62, 57 A prospective investigation was carried out in an attempt to resolve the controversy, and the results were previously reported.4.5 The latter studies have now been extended and repeated in a completely different geographical area. The results and conclusions derived from both of these investigations form the basis of this report, which seeks to emphasize the previous findings and to expand upon the validity of prospectively evaluating glucose metabolism in patients having endomentrial carcinoma and hyperplasia. The opportunity to investigate comparably a population group in the City of New York in addition to the original observations in Capetown, South Africa, permitted an appraisal of pathogenesis that clearly was unrelated to the geographical selection of patients.
Methods
In this study, as in the previous investigation, a control group of patients was sought comparable to the carcinoma patients with respect to (1) age group, (2) population characteristics, and (3) the manner and nature of performance of glucose testing.