4 ms·
This was likely tuberculosis and not lung cancer. Autopsy series have shown that TB is easily confused with cancers. 40 years ago the diagnostic tools available
by Gatsky 4y ago
This was likely tuberculosis and not lung cancer. Autopsy series have shown that TB is easily confused with cancers. 40 years ago the diagnostic tools available were very crude.
There is a crackpot promoting weird cancer therapies in my country who claims to have cured himself of metastatic sarcoma, but a peer reviewed medical analysis of the details suggests that was also TB.
- badpun 4y agoDidn't they have lung biopsies back then?
- Gatsky 4y agoThese days lung biopsies are performed with CT scan guidance (CT was only invented in 1974, widespread use came much later), endobronchial ultrasound (post 2000), or surgical exploration. Minimally invasive surgical techniques have only been around for 20 years. Patients sometimes cough up cancer cells in sputum, so a definitive diagnosis could have been done that way. But faced with the prospect of a major surgical procedure, he or his doctors may have declined to pursue that, particularly as there wasn’t really any treatment. I don’t have the necessary evidence to say for sure, but misdiagnosis is at least an order of magnitude more likely than spontaneous/Ikarian lifestyle induced lung cancer regression.