The majority of CTD patients who developed LC were diagnosed at advanced stage and had poor survival. Efforts for early detection of LC in CTD patients' group are warranted.

Aim To examine tuberculosis incidence rates among the elderly in Central Serbia in 1992-2006 period, which was characterized by socioeconomic crisis and migration of population.Methods We analyzed all reported active tuberculosis cases in a 15-year period, especially among patients aged ≥65, according to the Annual Reports of the Institute of Lung Diseases and Tuberculosis in Belgrade and Central Tuberculosis Register. Population estimates with extrapolations were based on 1991 and 2002 census data.Results Total tuberculosis incidence rates showed a slight but nonsignificant decreasing trend (P = 0.535), and no significant increase was found in patients aged ≥65 years (P = 0.064), with an average agespecific incidence rate for the elderly of 64.0 (95% confidence interval, 60.7-67.4). The increase was significant in patients aged ≥70 years (y = 49.3549 + 2.1186x; P = 0.001), both in men (y = 62.8666 + 2.3977x; P = 0.005) and even more prominently in women (y = 39.8240 + 1.9150x; P < 0.001). The proportion of tuberculosis cases in the elderly peaked in 2005, with 35% of all tuberculosis cases.Conclusion High incidence rates and increasing time trend of tuberculosis in the elderly in Central Serbia is a serious problem, especially among those aged 70 years and over, who might present a target group for active case-finding of the disease.

How patients relate to the experience of their illness has a direct impact over their behavior. We aimed to assess illness perception in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) by means of the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ) in correlation with patients’ demographic features and clinical TB score.Our observational questionnaire based study included series of consecutive TB patients enrolled in several countries from October 2008 to January 2011 with 167 valid questionnaires analyzed. Each BIPQ item assessed one dimension of illness perceptions like the consequences, timeline, personal control, treatment control, identity, coherence, emotional representation and concern. An open question referred to the main causes of TB in each patient’s opinion.The over-all BIPQ score (36.25 ± 11.054) was in concordance with the clinical TB score (p ≤ 0.001). TB patients believed in the treatment (the highest item-related score for treatment control) but were unsure about the illness identity. Illness understanding and the clinical TB score were negatively correlated (p < 0.01). Only 25% of the participants stated bacteria or TB contact as the first ranked cause of the illness.For routine clinical practice implementation of the BIPQ is convenient for obtaining fast and easy assessment of illness perception with potential utility in intervention design. This time saving effective personalized approach may improve communication with TB patients and contribute to better behavioral strategies in disease control.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-664) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

SCC is the most frequent histological type of lung cancer found in all age groups and in both genders of surgically treated patients.

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