Serious brain injuries tied to higher brain cancer risk in US Veterans

Abstract: Moderate or severe traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), along with penetrating TBIs, were linked with a higher risk of brain cancer among US veterans who served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, a cohort study of 1.9 million veterans found. The data came from medical records from 2004 to 2019. Moderate or severe TBIs were associated with a 90% increased risk of brain cancer. The overall chance of developing remained small, though: 17 people out of about 47 000 with moderate or severe TBIs—or 0.04%—were diagnosed with brain cancer. Less than 0.06% of veterans with penetrating TBIs were diagnosed with brain cancer. But that represented a more than 3-fold increase in risk compared with those without TBI. Mild TBIs were not associated with later risk of brain cancer. “Given that TBI is a common injury incurred in the course of military service, further research of this rare but devastating condition is needed to better identify those at risk,” the researchers wrote in JAMA Network Open

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