The pattern of cancer in a large cohort of stroke patients.
A cohort of 113,732 stroke patients from Danish Hospital Discharge Registry were, by linkage to the Danish Cancer Registry, found to have developed a total of 5151 cases of cancer in a mean follow-up time of 2.4 years after the diagnosis of stroke. There was no excess of gastric cancer. The present findings fail to support the existence of a common, strong risk factor for stroke and gastric cancer in individuals. In the cohort, more cancer than expected was observed. In particular, a more than ten-fold increase in risk of brain tumours within the first year after stroke diagnosis was observed, suggesting some diagnostic misinterpretation of a brain tumour as a stroke. Minor excesses of cancer of other sites were also found in the first year of follow-up. They are probably due to increased medical surveillance and diagnostic misinterpretation of an underlying malignancy as an incident of cerebrovascular disease, eg through metastatic spread to the brain.
Lindvig
K
K
Department of Medicine, Copenhagen County Hospital, Sct Elisabeth, Denmark.
Møller
H
H
Mosbech
J
J
Jensen
O M
OM
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012042:Registries; D012307:Risk Factors; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology