Clinical and Bacteriological Study on Pulmonary Infection in Cases of Advanced Lung Cancer

A clinical and bacteriological study on pulmonary infection was performed in 130 cases with advanced lung cancer. The results obtained were as follows: 1) Secondarypulmonary infection was found in 61 out of 130 cases (46.9%). The main types of pulmonary infection were obstructive pneumonia and opportunistic pulmonary infection, and squamous cell carcinomas were apt to be complicated by these types of pulmonary infection. 2) Obstructive pneumonia is difficult to cure unless thebronchial obstruction is improved. 3) Major inducing factors were bronchoscopy and irradiation in obstructive pneumonias, and corticosteroid administration and leukopenia in opportunistic pulmonary infections. 4) H. influenzae was most frequently isolated from sputa in cases of obstructive pneumonias, and gram negative bacilli, P. aeruginosa and Klebsiella were often isolated from sputa in cases of opportunistic pulmonary infections and obstructive pneumonia in the terminal stage of the disease. 5) Out of the total of 86 fatal cases, 22 (25.6%) died due to pulmonary infection. In squamous cell carcinoma 46% died of pulmonary infection. The survival time of cases that died due to pulmonary infection was 2.5 months shorter than that of fatalities due to other causes.