TB may raise lung cancer risk

TAICHUNG, Taiwan, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Evidence indicates tuberculosis patients are at greater risk of getting lung cancer, researchers in Taiwan say.

Researchers at China Medical University and Hospital in Taiwan found a 10.9 times greater likelihood of developing cancer in patients who had had tuberculosis than in patients without tuberculosis.

The study, published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, also found the rate of lung cancer mortality was more than six times higher in patients with tuberculosis than in non-tuberculosis patients.

"Tuberculosis is a very common chronic disease worldwide; people in the developing and undeveloped areas suffer with it mostly," Dr. Chih-Yi Chen, one of the researchers, said in a statement. "The risk of lung cancer may increase further to almost 16 times greater if patients with tuberculosis also suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This study suggests that it is also important to watch out for lung cancer prevention in the campaign against tuberculosis."

Chen and colleagues randomly selected 1 million national health insurance patients age 20 and older and found 716,872 eligible for analysis. Of these, 4,480 had had tuberculosis between 1998 and 2000 -- the exposed cohort -- and the rest without tuberculosis became the non-exposed cohort. All the patients -- cancer-free at the start of the study -- were followed for eight or more years.