HOTAIR and diabetes mellitus: It is worthy to note that within the breast cancer group, there was a significant increase in the serum expression levels of MALAT1 and HOTAIR in patients with diabetes mellitus, tumor size > 5 and tumor stages three and four compared to the non-diabetic patients, patients with tumor size < 5 and patients with tumor stage two, respectively, at p < 0.05 as shown in Table 4.