Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Lung Cancer: A Case Report

Abstract

Lung cancer and pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) are two major public health problems associated with similar clinical and radiological presentations thus leading to misdiagnosis and inappropriate initiation of treatment. We investigated the case of a patient presenting symptoms for Tuberculosis and who was finally diagnosed as having probable lung cancer. Lung cancer may be the cause of some of the symptoms in TB suspected patients and this calls for vigilance on clinicians to know what appropriate tests are needed for patients presenting symptoms suspicious of TB in order to differentially diagnose TB and /or lung cancer.