Women with diabetes are so taken up with the challenges the disease brings to them that they ignore getting recommended breast cancer screenings, a latest study shows.
Researchers found that 14 percent of the women diagnosed with diabetes did not take the breast cancer screenings compared to those without the disease.
"Our study found having diabetes posed a significant barrier to breast cancer screening even after considering a woman's socioeconomic status, a known contributor to disparities in care among women," lead researcher Dr Lorraine Lipscombe, a staff physician at Women's College Hospital and an adjunct scientist at Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, said in a press release.
For the study, the researchers examined diabetic women aged between 50 and 69 from 1999 to 2010. The results showed that women with diabetes were 14 percent less likely to get mammograms during the recommended screening period compared to those without diabetes.
Low socio-economic status also played an important role for breast cancer screenings in diabetic women, the researchers noted. They said it was an additional barrier to preventive care in an already disadvantaged population.
According to the researchers, the results were first to reveal the influence of socioeconomic status on probability of mammogram screening among female diabetics. They also said that the findings are important as diabetic women are more likely to develop breast cancer and have lower survival rates once diagnosed.
"Given the increasing demands on family doctors today who are seeing more patients than ever before, preventive issues like cancer screening are often overlooked," Lipscombe added. "Programs that offer incentives and reminders for cancer screening or allow for self-referral may help ensure all women are getting their mammograms when they need them most."
The findings are published in the journal Diabetic Medicine.
