NEW YORK: People living with cancer are more than twice as likely to die of a stroke, compared to the general population say, researchers, adding that the risk increases with time.

Cancers of the breast, prostate or colorectum were the type most commonly associated with fatal stroke, said the study published in the journal Nature Communications.

According to the researchers, previous research has shown that most cancer patients aren’t going to die of their cancer, they are going to die of something else.

“A stroke is one possibility. Our findings suggest that patients may benefit from a screening program to help prevent some of these early deaths from stroke, as well as help identify which patients we could target with those preventative efforts,” said study researcher Nicholas Zaorsky, Assistant Professor at Penn State University in the US.

For the findings, the researchers used data gathered from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program.

(Agencies)