Cholesterol pleural effusion in rheumatoid lung disease.

Cholesterol pleural effusion is a rare condition. According to Moll and Fowweather (1940), Malaguti collected 44 cases from the literature up to 1929. However, I have been able to read only 39 case reports since the original by Churton in 1882, the majority being in the non-English literature. This paper describes a further two patients, who are of particular interest in that for the first time there is in one case a full postmortem report with histological appearances and, in both, evidence that rheumatoid lung disease was an aetiological factor.