Patients with lung cancer treated for tuberculosis

Almost half of lung cancer patients die due to mistakes in diagnosis. Doctors initially accept their illness for tuberculosis.

Success in the treatment of lung cancer often depends on what stage the doctors detect this disease and start the therapy. However, statistics show that up to half of patients with lung cancer initially get diagnosed tuberculosis based on the symptoms that they display. Because of this, patients are treated from a very different disease, which leads to progression of lung cancer and death. Observations have shown that doctors often make the diagnosis of tuberculosis victims of lung cancer due to symptoms such as persistent cough, weight loss and shortness of breath. Patients receive prescriptions from tuberculosis, and sometimes the treatment continues, even when subsequent tests did not confirm the diagnosis.

Note that this statistic refers only to the African country of Kenya, however, the authors of the study believe that in some other countries of the world, doctors too often make mistakes like that. The researchers said that when they ask the doctors about what they’re doing with patients who do not respond to drugs against tuberculosis, the doctors answer is to switch them to other drugs against tuberculosis with drug resistance. In other words, the erroneous TB treatment continues anyway, although patients need emergency assistance in connection with lung cancer.

So, of the 154 patients who sought help at the hospital Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, 130 patients found tumors in the lungs. 52 were confirmed malignant tumors, 42 – lung cancer, 10 metastases of other tumors, are not related to the lungs. Half of the patients received drugs against tuberculosis even after x-rays clearly showed some lesions in his lungs. However, such formations are not always cancer. (READ MORE)