Abstract
BackgroundPsychological stress has been associated with transient global amnesia (TGA). Whether a cancer diagnosis, a severely stressful life event, is associated with subsequent risk of TGA has not been studied.MethodsBased on the Swedish Cancer Register and Patient Register, we conducted a prospective cohort study including 5,365,608 Swedes at age 30 and above during 2001–2009 to examine the relative risk of TGA among cancer patients, as compared to cancer-free individuals. Incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) derived from Poisson regression were used as estimates of the association between cancer diagnosis and the risk of TGA.ResultsDuring the study 322,558 individuals (6.01%) received a first diagnosis of cancer. We identified 210 cases of TGA among the cancer patients (incidence rate, 0.22 per 1000 person-years) and 4,887 TGA cases among the cancer-free individuals (incidence rate, 0.12 per 1000 person-years). Overall, after adjustment for age, sex, calendar year, socioeconomic status, education and civil status, cancer patients had no increased risk of TGA than the cancer-free individuals (IRR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.86–1.13). The IRRs did not differ over time since cancer diagnosis or across individual cancer types. The null association was neither modified by sex, calendar period or age.ConclusionOur study did not provide support for the hypothesis that patients with a new diagnosis of cancer display a higher risk of TGA than cancer-free individuals.
Highlights
Transient global amnesia (TGA) is one of the most striking syndromes in clinical neurology, characterized by a sudden onset of profound global amnesia which usually lasts less than 24 hours and typically resolves within a few hours [1]
Incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) derived from Poisson regression were used as estimates of the association between cancer diagnosis and the risk of transient global amnesia (TGA)
We identified 210 cases of TGA among the cancer patients and 4,887 TGA cases among the cancer-free individuals
Summary
Transient global amnesia (TGA) is one of the most striking syndromes in clinical neurology, characterized by a sudden onset of profound global amnesia (both retrograde and anterograde) which usually lasts less than 24 hours and typically resolves within a few hours [1]. Other studies have suggested that TGA patients are more likely to carry a psychopathological personality or demonstrate an emotional instability [2]. The potential triggering events for TGA have further proposed to induce a strong stress response, leading to subsequent changes of homeostasis [2, 8, 14, 15]. The underlying mechanism for the proposed stress-TGA link has been explored recently. No epidemiological study has to our knowledge examined the association of severely stressful life events with the risk of TGA. Psychological stress has been associated with transient global amnesia (TGA). A severely stressful life event, is associated with subsequent risk of TGA has not been studied
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