Motor neuron disease and malignancies: results of a population-based study

Eight cases of malignancies with concurrent motor neuron disease (MND), derived from an unselected population representing all cases of MND diagnosed during a 15-year period in two Italian provinces, were studied to verify the existence of paraneoplastic forms of the disease. No statistically significant association between the two diseases was found. Therefore, from our findings the occurrence of a neoplasm in a patient affected by MND can be considered a chance association.