STUDY OBJECTIVES To evaluate minithoracoscopy using 3-mm instrumentation for diagnosis of pleural effusions. In the initial phase of the study, minithoracoscopy was used only for small loculated effusions not accessible with standard-sized endoscopes. Indication was later extended to larger nonloculated effusions that could have been examined using conventional thoracoscopy. PATIENTS A total ...

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is an important mediator of angiogenesis and vascular permeability. We hypothesized that malignant pleural effusions may contain high levels of VEGF protein as well as other cytokines implicated in these processes. Pleural effusions cytologically proven to be malignant were collected from 39 patients with various types of cancer, and VEGF, interleukin-8...

BACKGROUND Pericardial effusions can be caused by a variety of disorders. The frequency of the underlying diseases varies with patient population; therefore, previously reported series are not necessarily representative of other populations. Our purpose was to examine the etiology of pericardial effusions and the survival of patients requiring pericardiocentesis at a tertiary center. METHODS ...

E A Dosumu, K Osagie, A Shuaib, Department of Medicine, National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria; and J A Momoh, Department of Chemical Pathology, National Hospital, Abuja. Corresponding author: Professor E A Dosumu, P O Box 8683, Wuse Post Office, Abuja, Nigeria. Email: [email protected] Introduction The necessity to improve diagnosis and the need to identify tuberculosis (TB) as a global crisis h...

BACKGROUND Serous effusion smears reported as (suspicious for malignancy) pose problems in clinical management. Silver staining for argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNOR) has proved useful in making a cytopathologic differential diagnosis between benign and malignant cells. Nucleolar organizer regions(NORs) are loops of DNA located in acrocentric chromosomes. These NORs are visualized...

BACKGROUND Vitamin D and vitamin D dependent antimicrobial peptides such as Cathelicidin (LL-37) and β-defensin 2 have an important role in innate and adaptative immunity, but their role in pleural effusions has not been studied before. METHODS Serum and pleural fluid samples from 152 patients with pleural effusion were collected, corresponding to 45 transudates and 107 exudates, 51 infectiou...

OBJECTIVE Pleural effusion is common problem, but the rapid and reliable diagnosis for specific pathogenic effusions are lacking. This study aimed to identify the diagnosis based on clinical variables to differentiate pleural tuberculous exudates from other pleural effusions. We also investigated the role of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) and matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) in the pathogenesis ...

PURPOSE Our main goal was to evaluate a panel of molecular markers for the detection of cancer cells in serous effusions and to determine their value as an adjunctive reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) test to cytologic examination. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN One hundred fourteen serous effusions from 71 patients with tumors and 43 patients with benign diseases were subjected to RT-PCR for expressio...

BACKGROUND Pleural effusions can be caused by highly different underlying diseases and are characterized by complex interactions of various local and circulating cells as well as numerous soluble parameters like interleukins (IL). Knowledge of this complex network can be helpful in order to make the differential diagnosis in known malignant pleural effusions and understand the underlying immuno...

BACKGROUND The identification of malignant cells in effusions by conventional cytology is hampered by its limited sensitivity and specificity. The aim of this study was to investigate the value of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) as adjuncts to conventional cytologic examination in patients with malignant pleural effusions. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 93 inpa...