BACKGROUNDIn grass-roots hospitals, the rate of misdiagnosis for lung cancer is rather high. The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons of misdiagnosis for lung cancer.

METHODSA total of 31 patients with signs out of lung from 1987 to 2004 were analyzed retrospectively.

RESULTSThere were different degrees of misdiagnosis in these 31 patients. One half of misdiagnostic reasons were medical factors, and the other half were due to patients' carelessness (15 cases/16 cases, 48%/52%). The medical factors included lack of knowledge of medical workers about tumor and limited conditions in grass-roots hospitals. The patient factor was mainly that they did not receive medical treatment in time.

CONCLUSIONSThe key point of reducing the misdiagnostic rate of lung cancer is to improve the professional level of medical workers and popularize peoples' knowledge about lung cancer.