People with colon cancer who also have either diabetes or high blood pressure are more likely to die from their cancer or have the illness come back after treatment compared with colon-cancer patients without those two conditions. That's the conclusion from Temple surgical oncologist Nestor Esnaola and his team. The investigators reviewed more than 36,000 medical records. "Perhaps patients that have early stage colon cancer that are diabetic or have hypertension may warrant closer cancer surveillance, i.e. follow-up," Esnaola said.