Tuberculosis and Carcinoma of the Lung

¹ Department of Surgery of the Minneapolis Veterans Administration Hospital and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55417

A comparison has been made between 43 patients with lung cancer and tuberculosis and the total group of 1,164 patients with cancer of the lung. The quantitative clinical characteristics of the two groups studied were not different. However, when various symptoms are evaluated in light of the therapy, age, and time course, a number of useful clinical signs of a coexistent malignancy can be identified. If a patient over 50 has acid-fast bacilli in the sputum, this should not be accepted as a reason to diminish the suspicion of a coexistent malignancy. The patient with tuberculosis of the lung has only a slightly higher likelihood of having restrictive or obstructive lung disease which would contraindicate exploration and resection. Otherwise in this series, effective operative management of lung cancer in the tuberculosis patients resulted in proportionately as many cures with no more risk than in the usual patients with lung cancer.