Stroke survivors could be up to twice as likely to develop cancer as the general population, a new observational study suggests.
Jacobo Rogado, MD, of Hospital de La Princesa in Spain, evaluated the medical records of nearly 400 stroke patients at his hospital over the course of two years in an attempt to back up previous post-mortem studies that suggest a link between stroke and cancer.
According to a release from the European Society for Medical Oncology, 29 stroke survivors—7.6 percent of the studied population—developed cancer within a year and a half of their stroke. This was 12 more patients than expected, Rogado said.
“We found that the incidence of cancer in stroke survivors was almost twice that of the general population,” Rogado said in the release. “When cancer was diagnosed, it was usually at an advanced stage, and the diagnosis was made within six months after a stroke.”
Rogado’s findings will be presented at the ESMO 2017 Congress in Madrid.
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After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.