How to distinguish pneumoconiosis from pulmonary tuberculosis? Detailed explanation of the main differences between the two

In the early stage of simple pneumoconiosis, there are no symptoms; once other lung diseases are combined, some symptoms will appear. If physical examinations are carried out regularly, the chest X-ray will show lung imaging that is very similar to that of some other lung diseases. The most common need is to distinguish it from the imaging of pulmonary tuberculosis and lung cancer, which mainly depends on the presentation of symptoms.

Pulmonary tuberculosis

The relationship between pulmonary tuberculosis and pneumoconiosis can be said to be one of the complications to which pneumoconiosis is prone, and the main thing is to check whether pulmonary tuberculosis has already been complicated in the chest X-ray imaging, that is, in the pneumoconiosis imaging, and then ask the patient whether new symptoms have appeared. Pulmonary tuberculosis is generally active in the initial stage, with night sweats, loss of appetite, fever, palpitations, etc., and the characteristic of the fever is long-term low-grade fever.

If acute hematogenous disseminated pulmonary tuberculosis is complicated, the chest X-ray will show uniformly distributed scattered nodules throughout the lungs, laboratory tests will show an increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate, a positive tuberculin test reaction, and tuberculous bacillus smear culture can also be performed. If there are no symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis and no high remittent fever, then it may be stage II silicosis. Therefore, Western medical examination must also be closely linked with symptom presentation.

Pneumoconiosis anatomy

To distinguish the two, the main thing is to see whether the phenomenon of complicated pulmonary tuberculosis has occurred. Essentially speaking, pneumoconiosis is an occupational disease with an obvious history of inhaling particulate matter and dust. If there is no occupational nature, the chest X-ray will show uniformly distributed scattered nodules throughout the lungs and other lung imaging similar to pulmonary tuberculosis and pneumoconiosis, and naturally there will also be symptoms unique to tuberculosis in the symptom presentation.