• Kimberly D van der Willik, Sanne B Schagen, and M Arfan Ikram.
• Department of Psychosocial Research and Epidemiology, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• Eur. J. Clin. Invest. 2018 Nov 1; 48 (11): e13019e13019.

AbstractNoncentral nervous system cancer and the brain share an interesting and complex relation, with an emerging body of evidence showing that cancer patients are at an increased risk of developing cognitive problems. In contrast, population-based studies consistently find an inverse link between cancer and dementia, that is patients with dementia having a lower risk of subsequently developing cancer, and cancer patients being less often diagnosed with dementia. Different biological processes such as inversely activated cell proliferation and survival pathways have been suggested to have an important role underlying this inverse association. However, the effect of methodological biases including surveillance or survival bias has not been completely ruled out, calling into question the inverse direction of the association between cancer and dementia. In fact, emerging evidence now suggests that cancer and dementia might share a positive association. This narrative review summarises the current literature on cancer, cognitive problems and dementia. Moreover, different strategies will be discussed to reduce the impact of potential methodological biases on the association between cancer and dementia, trying to reveal the true direction of this link.© 2018 The Authors. European Journal of Clinical Investigation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Stichting European Society for Clinical Investigation Journal Foundation.

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