Cancer as a Cause of Death Among Patients With Other Chronic Diseases

ABSTRACT To the Editor:— Doshay (J. A. M. A. 156:680-684 Oct. 16 1954) has suggested that patients with paralysis agitans are less likely than others to contract cancer. He states: For reasons as yet unclear, cancer is phenomenally rare in paralysis agitans, despite the fact that the patients are in the age group 45 to 75, when the expectancy of cancer in the general population is high. illy one proved instance of cancer has developed among the illeral thousand cases I have followed during the past 20 years, and this patient had a rectal cancer, without operation or metastases, for 5 years, until she died during a vascular episode. The patient material from the Ulleval Hospital (Oslo City Hospitals) has been used in an attempt to study this point quantitatively. All patients discharged alive during the years 1917-1950 with a diagnosis of paralysis agitans or Parkinsonism, a total of 154, were