Can a first-time seizure be an early warning sign of cancer?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-04-28 01:00

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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

A first seizure could be an early sign of cancer in some people, according to international researchers who found a large increase in the relative risk of a neurological cancer diagnosis in the year after an initial seizure. The team compared cancer diagnosis rates in nearly 50,000 Danish adults with a first-time seizure with those of the general Danish population over 20 years. In the first year of follow-up, the researchers say 2.4% of the first-time seizure group had a neurological cancer and 1.7% developed non-neurological cancers - compared to the general population, this rate was 76.1 times higher for neurological cancers and 2.32 times higher for non-neurological cancers over the first year. Overall cancer risk remained slightly elevated for the seizure group over the 20-year study, the researchers say. They say their research suggests that when someone has a seizure for the first time, they may need broader medical evaluation in case it's an early sign of a cancer developing.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Neurology

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Aarhus University, Denmark

Funder: Dr Sørensen reported that the Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University, receives funding for other studies in the form of institutional research grants to (and administered by) Aarhus University and making paid evaluations for the European Research Council, the Independent Research Fund Denmark, the Norwegian Research Council, and the University of Oslo outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

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