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Traumatic brain injury and brain cancer risk

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

A population-based study in Taiwan aimed to investigate the risk of having a diagnosis of malignant brain tumors within 3 years after a traumatic brain injury (TBI) (1):

  • study cohort comprised 5007 patients who had visited ambulatory care centers or had been hospitalized with a diagnosis of TBI between 2001 and 2002
    • comparison cohort was 25,035 randomly selected enrollees
  • hazard of being diagnosed with malignant brain tumors during the 3-year follow-up period was 4.67 (95% CI: 1.84-11.83) times greater for those who sustained a TBI than for patients in the comparison cohort
  • found an association between TBI severity and malignant brain tumor among patients with TBI (p=0.033)

In a cohort study of more than 1.9 million veterans, moderate or severe and penetrating TBI were associated with the subsequent development of brain cancer (2):

  • moderate/severe TBI (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR], 1.90; 95% CI, 1.16-3.12) and penetrating TBI (AHR, 3.33; 95% CI, 1.71-6.49), but not mild TBI (AHR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.88-1.47), were associated with the subsequent development of brain cancer
  • study authors concluded "..in this cohort study of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, moderate/severe TBI and penetrating TBI, but not mild TBI, were associated with the subsequent development of brain cancer.."

Reference:

  1. Chen YH, Keller JJ, Kang JH, Lin HC. Association between traumatic brain injury and the subsequent risk of brain cancer. J Neurotrauma. 2012 May 1;29(7):1328-33.
  2. Stewart IJ, Howard JT, Poltavskiy E, et al. Traumatic Brain Injury and Subsequent Risk of Brain Cancer in US Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(2):e2354588. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.54588

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