Misdiagnosis Murder: Disguised TB or Lung Cancer?

Kalpesh Vaghasiya, Ankur Sharma and Rahul Kumar Verma*

Misdiagnosis Murder: Disguised TB or Lung Cancer?

Medical misdiagnosis dilemma of Tuberculosis versus Lung Cancer and their pre-judged unsuitable
grueling treatment leading to numerous unnecessary deaths worldwide. Globally, numerous
patients with incurable LC are often misdiagnosed as sputum smear-negative
pulmonary-TB and vice-versa leading to delayed treatment and incorrect medication.

In most of the cases, LC stay undiagnosed for long periods of time as it shows no symptoms in early stages
of disease. PTB and LC often show analogous symptoms including short painful breathing, persistent cough, tired-ness and inexplicable weight loss of patient.

Preliminary radiological features and symptoms of both ailments are so similar and imitate each-other; clinicians over and over again fail to distinguish it, resulting in many avoidable losses. In low-income countries like Africa, China and India, with high prevalence of PTB, misdiagnosis is more often which deceive clinicians to diagnose LC as PTB.

Various factors are cited to be responsible for this situation in developing countries, includes
insufficient infrastructure and socio-economic condition. Deferred prognosis and diagnosis promotes spread of the disease to other parts of the body, which can lead to more serious symptoms and eventual fatalities.

Timely diagnosis of LC can increase the possibility of tumor ablation and chemo-radiotherapy to stave off the ailment. More often, clinicians begin anti-TB treatment for LC without confirmation of diagnosis that worsens the
situation, to which I censure as “Misdiagnosis-murder”. Similarly, wrong or delayed diagnosis of TB leads to poorer prognosis and higher likelihood of relapse of disease.

Pulm Res Respir Med Open J. 2016; 3(2): e5-e6. doi: 10.17140/PRRMOJ-3-e006

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