Multiple Sclerosis Patients Have Lower Risk of Cancer

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2012) — Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients appear to have a lower cancer risk, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health.

The study, published online in the journal Brain, is the first to investigate overall cancer risk in MS patients in North America.

"Because the immune system plays important roles in both cancer and MS, we wanted to know whether the risk of cancer is different for people with MS," says Elaine Kingwell, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in the UBC Faculty of Medicine and Brain Research Centre at UBC and VCH Research Institute. "Not only did MS patients have a lower overall cancer risk, the risk for colorectal cancer in particular was significantly lower."

The researchers compared the diagnoses of cancer in MS patients in British Columbia with those of the general population. While they found that MS patients have a lower risk in general for cancer -- and in particular for colorectal cancer -- they found that the risks for brain cancer and bladder cancer were slightly elevated (albeit not significantly). In patients with relapsing-onset MS, the risk for non-melanoma skin cancer was significantly greater.

Further studies will be needed to understand the reasons for this reduced overall cancer risk.

To read more about MS, please click on the above title.

To access the CDR Library catalog please click on this link.