Association of stroke at young age with new cancer in the years after stroke among patients in The Netherlands

Stroke may be a first manifestation of an occult cancer or may be an indicator of an increased cancer risk in later life. A cohort study of 27,616 patients aged 15 to 49 years and 362,782 patients aged 50 years or older found that the incidence of cancer among the younger group was more that 2 times greater in the first year after ischemic stroke and more than 5 times greater in the first year after intracerebral hemorrhage when compared with the general population. The older group experienced a smaller, but still increased, incidence of cancer.