We ascertained prior pulmonary tuberculosis infection in 211 non-Caucasian female lung cancer patients and 419 sex, race, ape, smoking history and birthplace-matched control subjects by searching the Hawaii State Tuberculosis Branch patient records. Among never-smokers we found a significant increase in risk associated with prior tuberculous infection (odds ratio, 8.2; 95% confidence limits = 1.3 to 54.4). No such association was found among smokers. Prior tuberculous infection was identified in only 5.5% of never-smoking lung cancer patients, however, suggesting that this factor is a relatively unimportant contributor to the etiologic aspects of lung cancer in persons who have never smoked.