Can tuberculosis develop into lung cancer?

A 58-year-old female patient was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Will she develop lung cancer?

So far, there is no evidence to prove that there is a direct relationship between pulmonary tuberculosis and lung cancer. Pulmonary tuberculosis does not necessarily develop into lung cancer, but lung cancer combined with active pulmonary tuberculosis does exist clinically, and attention should be paid to differential diagnosis.

Pulmonary tuberculosis is a chronic respiratory infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, while lung cancer is a malignant tumor related to air pollution and some physical and chemical carcinogens. Although there is no direct relationship between pulmonary tuberculosis and the incidence of lung cancer, the chronic damage caused by pulmonary tuberculosis to the lungs affects the normal function of the bronchial mucosal epithelium and indirectly promotes the occurrence of lung cancer.

If lung cancer coexists with active pulmonary tuberculosis, diagnosis will be more difficult. When both exist at the same time, the diagnosis of lung cancer is often overlooked due to the presence of tuberculosis lesions or the presence of tuberculosis bacilli in sputum. For patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, the possibility of lung cancer should be highly alert when encountering the following situations:

1. Male patients over 40 years old with a long history of smoking;

2. Patients with irritating cough, persistent chest pain, shortness of breath, weight loss, symptoms inconsistent with X-ray examination, and progressive aggravation;

3. Combined with pleural effusion, and the amount of pleural effusion increases rapidly;

4. Or new lesions may appear in other parts of the body;

5. The chest X-ray showed that the mass was round and mass-like, with a diameter greater than 24 cm. The mass was lobed, with irregular and spicate-like edges, accompanied by enlarged hilar lymph nodes and atelectasis.