Tuberculosis patients are 11 times more likely than the average to develop lung cancer, according to a new study published by a group of Taiwanese scientists. The researchers followed more than 700,000 randomly selected individuals over a period of six years, including 4,480 diagnosed with tuberculosis, they said in a statement on January 05.
"The incidence of lung cancer in these tuberculosis patients was 11 times greater than people without tuberculosis," said one of the researchers, Chen Chih-yi, from China Medical University in the central Taiwan city of Taichung.
"This study suggests that it is also important to watch out for lung cancer prevention in the campaign against tuberculosis."
The findings, published in the January issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, support the notion of a link between tuberculosis and lung cancer, which has so far been suspected but not definitively proved.
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