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Tuberculosis linked to higher risk for lung cancer
Yu YH. J Thorac Oncol. 2011;6:32-37.
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Patients with tuberculosis had a risk for lung cancer that was approximately 11 times higher than those without tuberculosis, according to recent study results.
Researchers from a medical university in Taiwan examined whether the acquisition of pulmonary tuberculosis was linked to an increased lung cancer risk in insured, cancer-free individuals aged 20 years or older.
The analysis was conducted on a cohort of 716,872 people with data from China’s National Health Insurance program from 1998 to 2000.
Tuberculosis was newly diagnosed in 4,480 patients. These patients and the 712,392 who did not contract tuberculosis were tracked until 2007 to determine differences in lung cancer incidence rates.
Patients with tuberculosis were approximately 11 times more likely to develop lung cancer than those in the non-tuberculosis cohort — 26.3 vs. 2.41 per 10,000 person-years.
Regression analysis results indicated that the HR for lung cancer risk in the tuberculosis cohort was 4.37 (95% CI, 3.56-5.36) compared with those without tuberculosis. The HR was 3.32 (95% CI, 2.70-4.09) after further adjustment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other non-lung cancer smoking-related cancers, among other variables.
Combining tuberculosis with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease yielded an increase in the lung cancer risk HR to 6.22 (95% CI, 4.87-7.94). The combination of tuberculosis and other smoking-related cancers resulted in an HR for lung cancer risk of 15.5 (95% CI, 2.17-110).
“This study provides a compelling evidence of increased lung cancer risk among individuals with tuberculosis,” the researchers wrote. “The risk may increase further with coexisting [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] or other smoking-related cancers.”
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