Abstract
BACKGROUND: Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. Our study investigated whether the coexistence of an old pulmonary TB lesion is an independent prognostic factor for lung cancer survival in Chinese non-small cell lung cancer patients. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of 782 non-small cell lung cancer patients who underwent surgical resection as their primary treatment in 2006 and were followed for 5 years. The associations between lung cancer survival and the presence of old pulmonary TB lesions were assessed using Cox's proportional hazard regression analysis adjusted for WHO performance status (PS), age, sex, smoking-status, tumor stage, and surgical approach. RESULTS: Sixty-four of the patients had old pulmonary TB lesions. The median survival of squamous cell carcinoma patients with TB was significantly shorter than that of patients without TB (1.7 vs. 3.4 years, p < 0.01). The presence of an old pulmonary TB lesion is an independent predictor of poor survival with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.72 (95% CI, 1.12-2.64) in the subgroup of squamous cell carcinoma patients studied. CONCLUSION: The presence of an old pulmonary TB lesion may be an important prognostic factor for predicting the survival of squamous cell carcinoma patients.