Previous pulmonary tuberculosis enhances the risk of lung cancer: systematic reviews and meta-analysis

Abstract

Purpose

The possible association between history of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and lung cancer (LC) has attracted researchers’ attention for several decades. This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to assess the association between previous pulmonary TB infection and LC risk.

Methods

A Systematic and comprehensive search was performed in the following databases: PubMed, Embase, clinical key, Web of Science and Google Scholar, in articles and abstracts published from 1987 to 2021. Thirty-two articles (involving 50,290 cases and 846,666 controls) met the inconclusive criteria. The Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 2.2 software was used for this meta-analysis.

Results

The result of this meta-analysis demonstrates that pre-existing active pulmonary TB increases the risk of LC (RR = 2.170, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.833–2.569, p < .001, I² = 91.234%). The results showed that the risk of the history of active pulmonary TB infection in adenocarcinoma was 2.605 (95% CI 1.706–3.979, p < .001, I² = 55.583%), in small-cell carcinoma was 2.118 (95% CI 1.544–2.905, p < .001, I² = 0.0%), in squamous-cell carcinoma, was 3.570 (95% CI 2.661 − 4.791, p < .001, I² = 42.695%) and 2.746 (95% CI 2.300–3.279, p < .001, I² = 41.686%) for other histological types of LCs. According to these results, a history of active pulmonary TB increases the risk of LC.

Conclusions

This study emphasizes the importance of LC screening in pulmonary TB patients even after the infection is treated. With the increased chances of LC in a patient who had a history of active pulmonary TB, there could be a need for a further follow-up period after pulmonary TB recovery.

Keywords:

• Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• lung neoplasm
• lung cancer
• lung carcinoma

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Colgate University library system for all of its help and resources.

Human and animal rights and informed consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Author contributions

All named authors meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship for this article, take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole and have given their approval for this version to be published.

S.S. conceived and designed the study and wrote this manuscript. H.A. and A.Y. searched the database and reviewed studies. H.A. and M.S. performed data analysis and prepared the initial draft of the manuscript. H.A., M.S., F.A. and A.H.A. participated in interpreting data, helped in drafting the manuscript, and critically reviewed the manuscript. H.A. and M.S. have contributed equally to this work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

Data associated with this study can be accessed from the first author upon a reasonable request.