Study tuberculosis increases the risk of lung cancer

Study: Tuberculosis increases lung cancer risk

03/01/2011

Tuberculosis (TBC) increases the risk of getting lung cancer. Taiwanese scientists have found that for patients who have tuberculosis, the risk of lung cancer is around eleven times higher than usual.

Eleven-fold higher lung cancer risk in TBC
As the scientists of China Medical University in Taichung, Taiwan in the current issue of „Journal of Thoracic Oncology“ As part of their comprehensive study, they had evaluated the data of just under 720,000 people. In advance, 4,480 patients were diagnosed with tuberculosis between 1998 and 2000, and around 712,000 people without a tuberculosis diagnosis (as a control group) were enrolled in the study. None of the study participants had been diagnosed with cancer until now. To determine the relationship between TBC and lung cancer, the researchers observed from 2001 to 2007, how many study participants fell ill with bronchogenic carcinoma. Their now published result: The risk of developing lung cancer after a tuberculosis was around eleven times (exactly 10.9) higher than in the control group. Statistically, there were 2.4 lung cancer diagnoses for 10,000 people in the control group and 26.3 for tuberculosis patients, according to researchers in the journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)..

Tuberculosis: deadliest infectious disease worldwide
The scientists emphasized that their study was scientific „convincing evidence“ for a higher risk of lung cancer due to TBC, even if the effect of the relationship needs to be examined in more detail. The researchers are convinced that their findings should be incorporated into the tuberculosis treatment. Measures to improve lung cancer screening and screening for TB patients are an important step, the researchers said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than two billion people worldwide are currently infected with TB and every second there is another case. However, the disease breaks out in just under 10 percent of infected people throughout their lives. According to the WHO, almost nine million people a year contract TB, with more than 1.6 million people dying each year as a result of the disease. This makes tuberculosis the deadliest of all infectious diseases. A particularly high disease risk exists for AIDS patients, as their immune system is unable to fight off the TBC pathogens. Of the TB-related deaths, the majority occur in developing countries, as the required lengthy treatment with relatively expensive antibiotics is inadequate. Half of all TB cases were detected in Asia. In Germany, the numbers of TBC diseases have been declining for years and in 2008 fell in this country, according to the Robert Koch Institute, only 4,543 patients with tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis as a risk factor for lung cancer
While many risk factors (asbestos, chromium, tobacco smoke) have been identified for increased lung cancer risk, the identified association with the onset of TB is a new medical field. It has been a long time „well known that lung cancer is causally related to smoking“, However, the current findings suggest that the global fight against tuberculosis could also serve to prevent lung cancer, said Chih-Yi Chen of China Medical University in the current release. According to the Robert Koch Institute, around 50,000 people a year contract lung cancer in Germany - and the trend is rising. The number of deaths per year is currently around 40,000 in Germany, with men being affected more than twice as often as women. (Fp)

Also read:
Pistachios as protection against lung cancer
Special form of lung cancer in smokers
Diagnosis smoker's lung: morbidity rate is increasing

Image: Martin Gapa