(9-March-2005/Reuters)Patients suffering from diabetes could be two to three times more likely to develop cancer of the liver, researchers said on Tuesday.

Chronic infections with hepatitis C and B, cirrhosis and a family history of the illness are risk factors for liver cancer but even without any of these, diabetics have higher odds of getting the disease.


"Diabetes is associated with a two-to-three-fold increase in the risk of liver cancer, regardless of the presence of other major risk factors," said Dr Hashem El-Serag, an epidemiologist at the Houston Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Texas.


But he added that the cancer is very rare and the overall risk to a diabetes patient is low.


The researchers uncovered the raised risk by studying a database of patients who received Medicare funding for health care. From 1994 to 1999, 2,061 patients aged 65 years and older were treated for liver cancer.


They compared them with 6,000 other patients of a similar age who did not have the cancer and checked whether they had known risk factors.


After taking into account other contributing factors, including age and being male, which also raise the risk, they found that diabetes raised the odds of developing liver cancer.


"This study, along with other studies, really confirms the emerging role for diabetes as an independent risk factor for liver cancer," said El-Serag, who reported the findings in the journal Gut.


"Checking liver enzymes and function should be a routine part of care in diabetics," he added in an interview.


Diabetes is also linked to a raised risk of heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney damage and nerve disorders that can lead to amputations. About 17,550 new cases of the primary liver cancer and bile duct cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 2005, according to estimates by the American Cancer Society.


The cancer is 10 times more common in developing countries in East Asia, Africa and Asia than in the United States. The overall survival rate is poor.