The risk of cerebrovascular accidents in colon cancer in the United States: A population-based national study.

Abstract

e15516 Background: Colon cancer is the 3rd most common cause of cancer death in the United States. However, death rates have been decreasing due to increased uptake of screening and advances in treatment; as a result, there are more than 1.5 million survivors. In addition, cancer as a risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) is established, and the underlying mechanisms of VTE are shared with arterial thromboembolism. Yet, there is a lack of population-based data to define the risk of cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) in colon cancer. Methods: Retrospectively we analyzed data from a nationwide commercial database (Explorys, IBM) from 1999 to October 2022. It aggregates records from 26 healthcare systems across 50 states with almost 80 million patients. We identified adults over 18 years old with colon cancer and obtained data on risk factors, including sex, age over 65 years, hypertension (HTN), hyperlipidemia (HLD), diabetes mellitus (DM), atrial fibrillation, obesity, and tobacco use. Multivariable logistic regression was used to adjust for the variables collected. All tests were two-sided, and a p-value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A population of 69,339,860 was included. Colon cancer was diagnosed in 304,650 (0.4%) and CVA in 237,290 (0.3%). Males made 45%. The colon cancer group, compared to the background population, had a higher prevalence of patients aged over 65 years (66.8% vs. 30.7%), HTN (61% vs. 21.1%), HLD (50.7% vs. 16.9%), DM (31.4% vs. 8.8%), obesity (20.7% vs. 8.0%), tobacco use (12.5% vs. 6.6%) and CVA (5% vs. 0.3%). Multivariable logistic regression of variable studies (Table). Colon cancer was significantly associated with CVA. Conclusions: Our study included over 69 million adults, making it the most extensive population-based study of the risk of CVA in colon cancer in the United States. After adjustment for most established risk factors that may confound the result, colon cancer was associated with a significantly increased risk of CVA, and it was preceded only by HTN. Colon cancer portrayed more risk than atrial fibrillation. Limitations of population-based studies are several, including inaccuracies and miscoding. Our findings suggest that colon cancer survivors and patients with stable disease on treatment may have their prognosis and quality of life jeopardized by CVA. Prospective studies are needed, and management of modifiable risk factors in collaboration with primary care is paramount. [Table: see text]