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Occurrence of malignant diseases in patients with multiple sclerosis: population-based MS Registry data

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Abstract

Introduction

Among different comorbidities occurring in multiple sclerosis (MS), the presence of malignant diseases in these patients is of the particular importance. The aim of this study was to determine the malignant diseases burden in a whole cohort of patients with MS in the Belgrade region, based on the Belgrade population registry data.

Material and methods

This study comprises 2725 MS patients from the MS Registry, which represents a source for all necessary demographic and clinical data. Firstly, the Registry was searched for all persons with MS who had cancer comorbidity, during the period 1996–2019. Diagnosis of cancer was validated by the patients’ medical documentation. In order to investigate factors associated with the occurrence of any type of the cancer and/ or breast cancer only, in persons with MS, different logistic regression analyses were performed.

Results

A total of 64 persons with 69 malignant diseases were observed (prevalence 2.53%). The most frequent malignancies in males were skin cancer (50.0%) and in females, breast cancer (23.2%). The cumulative incidence of cancer comorbidity in persons with MS was 324.9 new cases per 100,000 person-years for the total population (137.6/100,000 in males and 403.6 per 100,000 in females). Comparison of cancer incidence rate between MS and general Belgrade population revealed lower risk for malignancy occurrence in the MS population in total (standardized incidence ratio, SIR = 0.58, 95% CI 0.16–1.49).

Conclusions

Our findings demonstrate that MS patients in the Belgrade region have lower risk for the development of malignancy than age- and sex-matched general population.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia (grant no. 200110).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Gorica Maric, Tatjana Pekmezovic & Aleksa Jovanovic

  2. Clinic of Neurology, University Clinical Center of Serbia, Dr Subotica 6, 11000 Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Sarlota Mesaros, Olivera Tamas, Nikola Veselinovic, Maja Budimkic Stefanovic & Jelena Drulovic

  3. Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Sarlota Mesaros, Olivera Tamas, Nikola Veselinovic, Maja Budimkic Stefanovic & Jelena Drulovic

Authors
  1. Gorica Maric
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  2. Tatjana Pekmezovic
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  3. Sarlota Mesaros
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  4. Olivera Tamas
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  5. Nikola Veselinovic
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  6. Maja Budimkic Stefanovic
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  7. Aleksa Jovanovic
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  8. Jelena Drulovic
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Jelena Drulovic and Tatjana Pekmezovic. Methodology: Jelena Drulovic, Tatjana Pekmezovic, Sarlota Mesaros, and Gorica Maric. Formal analysis and investigation: Gorica Maric. Writing — original draft preparation: Gorica Maric. Writing — review and editing: Gorica Maric, Sarlota Mesaros, Olivera Tamas, Nikola Veselinovic, Maja Budimkic Stefanovic, and Aleksa Jovanovic. Supervision: Jelena Drulovic and Tatjana Pekmezovic.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jelena Drulovic.

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Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade (no. 29/III-17).

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Maric, G., Pekmezovic, T., Mesaros, S. et al. Occurrence of malignant diseases in patients with multiple sclerosis: population-based MS Registry data. Neurol Sci 43, 6839–6846 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-022-06362-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-022-06362-8

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