Women with diabetes are more likely than those without the disease to be diagnosed with an advanced and difficult to treat form of breast cancer, a Dutch study suggests.

The researchers examined data on nearly 6300 women diagnosed with breast cancer from 2002 to 2014, including more than 1500 with type 2 diabetes.

The women with diabetes were 28% more likely to be diagnosed with more advanced cancer and 22% more likely to be diagnosed with more aggressive types of tumours than the women without diabetes, the study found.

Whether the women with diabetes used insulin didn’t appear to influence the characteristics of their breast cancers.