SynthesisDiabetologia2009
No evidence of increased risk of malignancies in patients with diabetes treated with insulin detemir: a meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Diabetologia, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 110 citations in OpenAlex.
- [Diagnostics and treatment of type 1 diabetes mellitus (Update 2026)].Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2026Guideline
- Treatment with insulin (analogues) and breast cancer risk in diabetics; a systematic review and meta-analysis of in vitro, animal and human evidence.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2015Pooled it
- Potential increased risk of cancer from commonly used medications: an umbrella review of meta-analyses.Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology · 2014Pooled it
- Use of insulin and insulin analogs and risk of cancer - systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.Current drug safety · 2013Pooled it
- Cancer risk for patients using thiazolidinediones for type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis.The oncologist · 2013Pooled it
- Diabetes: glycaemic control in type 2 (drug treatments).BMJ clinical evidence · 2012Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Diabetes mellitus and risk of breast cancer: a large-scale, prospective, population-based study.British journal of cancer · 2023Article
- Article
- Review
- [Diagnosis and insulin therapy of type 1 diabetes mellitus (Update 2019)].Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2019Review
- Metformin and blood cancers.Clinics (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2018Review
- Genome-Wide Analyses Identify Filamin-A As a Novel Downstream Target for Insulin and IGF1 Action.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2018Article
- The expanding role of metformin in cancer: an update on antitumor mechanisms and clinical development.Targeted oncology · 2016Review
- Looking at the carcinogenicity of human insulin analogues via the intrinsic disorder prism.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality among Users of Basal Insulins NPH, Detemir, and Glargine.PloS one · 2016Article
- Impaired glucose metabolism treatment and carcinogenesis.Oncology letters · 2015Article
- Mammary gland tumor promotion by chronic administration of IGF1 and the insulin analogue AspB10 in the p53R270H/⁺WAPCre mouse model.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2015Article
- Diabetes and cancer: two diseases with obesity as a common risk factor.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2014Review
- Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aims/hypothesisRecent epidemiological studies suggest that treatment with insulin glargine (A21Gly,B31Arg,B32Arg human insulin) may promote cancer growth. The present meta-analysis was performed to assess the risk of cancer during treatment with insulin detemir (B29Lys(epsilon-tetradecanoyl),desB30 human insulin), another long-acting insulin analogue.
methodsThis meta-analysis was performed in a population of 8,693 patients with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, who were included in Novo Nordisk-sponsored, randomised and controlled diabetes trials of at least 12 weeks in duration that compared insulin detemir with NPH insulin or insulin glargine. In a blinded manner, the adverse events with suspected treatment-emergent malignant tumours were obtained from these studies under three system-organ classes: 'Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (including cysts and polyps)', 'Neoplasm' and 'Surgical and medical procedures'. Conditional ORs were estimated applying both the Mantel-Haenzel and Peto methods to ensure robustness of results.
resultsSeparate analyses were performed for trials comparing insulin detemir with NPH insulin and insulin detemir with insulin glargine. In the first analysis, 16 studies were included with a total of 3,983 patients treated with insulin detemir and 2,661 patients treated with NPH insulin. In the second analysis, five studies were included with a total of 1,219 patients treated with insulin detemir and 830 patients treated with insulin glargine. The estimated OR for a cancer diagnosis between NPH insulin and insulin detemir was statistically significantly >1, with the ratio favouring insulin detemir. There was a more than twofold higher cancer occurrence in the NPH insulin-treated population. For the insulin detemir comparison with insulin glargine, there was a non-significant difference in ORs in favour of insulin detemir. CONCLUSIONS/
interpretationIn these randomised controlled diabetes trials, patients treated with insulin detemir had a lower or similar occurrence of a cancer diagnosis compared with patients treated with NPH insulin or insulin glargine, respectively.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.