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Primary care physicians often order follow-up chest x-rays for patients after clinical resolution of pneumonia. This management strategy is based on research that revealed an association between pneumonia and lung cancer. However, the seminal studies are outdated, and one study included patients as young as 18.
Investigators used a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs database to examine medical records of patients (age, ≥65) who were hospitalized for pneumonia from 2002 through 2007 and to identify which patients had received subsequent new diagnoses of pulmonary malignancy (the primary study outcome). Patients were included only if they had no other admissions for pneumonia in the year before their index pneumonia hospitalizations. Secondar…