[Metastasizing carcinoma of the breast and diabetes mellitus, a prognostically favourable combination (author's transl)].

In 1972 and 1973 altogether 130 women were treated with hormones and cytostatic drugs for progressive, metastasizing breast carcinoma. 30 of them also had subclinical or manifest diabetes mellitus. Clinical analysis indicated that metastasizing cancer of the breast in women who also have diabetes took a protracted course. Survival timed from the moment of operations, as well as from the occurrence of the first metastases, were significantly longer in women with than without diabetes. Those with a familial predisposition towards cancer of the breast were, however, not within the tested groups. It is possible that women with cancer of the breast and diabetes are also a favourable group for trying hormone therapy: in 18 of 24, hormones induced remissions, but in only less than one third of all the other patients.