ed bullet points Clinical picture N All children with parapneumonic effusion or empyema should be admitted to hospital. [D] N If a child remains pyrexial or unwell 48 hours after admission for pneumonia, parapneumonic effusion/empyema must be excluded. [D] Diagnostic imaging N Posteroanterior or anteroposterior radiographs should be taken; there is no role for a routine lateral radiograph. [D] ...

ed bullet points Clinical picture N All children with parapneumonic effusion or empyema should be admitted to hospital. [D] N If a child remains pyrexial or unwell 48 hours after admission for pneumonia, parapneumonic effusion/empyema must be excluded. [D] Diagnostic imaging N Posteroanterior or anteroposterior radiographs should be taken; there is no role for a routine lateral radiograph. [D] ...

Tuberculosis and malignancy are two common causes of exudative pleural effusions. In this retrospective study of 52 patients with tuberculous pleural effusions and 32 patients with malignant effusions, the median age of patients with malignant effusions (68.5 years) was older than that of patients with tuberculous effusions (34.5 years) (p < 0.001). Both types of effusion occurred more frequent...

 Abstract  Background: At present, differentiation between exudative and transudative pleural  effusion is based solely on laboratory measures and is time-consuming. Asimple  bedside method would be of great help to differentiate between these two types of effusions.  We present a new method for this purpose assessed in 46 patients.  Methods: Standard laboratory tests and our method were tested...

BACKGROUND Apoptosis plays a role in the development of pleural effusion. Caspase-cleaved cytokeratin 18, a marker for epithelial cell apoptosis, was evaluated in pleural effusion. METHODS A total of 79 patients with pleural effusion were enrolled. The underlying causes were lung cancer (n=24), parapneumonic effusion (n=15), tuberculous effusion (n=28), and transudates (n=12). The levels of M...

Results: Increase Uric acid level was observed in pleural fluid of transudative pleural effusion than exudative pleural effusion. It was also observed that the level of uric acid was more in pleural fluid than serum and ratio (pleural fluid / serum) of uric acid was ≥ 1 in transudative conditions but in case of exudative condition the this ratio was < 1. The optimum cut-off level for P uric aci...

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem in developing countries including Nepal. One of the common presentations of TB is pleural effusion. The diagnosis of tubercular pleural effusion can be difficult because of the low rate of detecting tubercule bacilli by direct stain and culture of pleural fluid for acid-fast bacilli (AFB). Pleural biopsy can be useful but is invasive and requir...

The treatment of complex parapneumonic effusions in children remains controversial, with some advocating less invasive, strictly medical management and others supporting a more aggressive approach of thoracotomy with or without decortication. Recent advances, including video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery and intrapleural fibrinolytic therapy, offer new options for effective treatment. We repor...

Pleural effusion affects more than 1.5 million people in the United States each year and often complicates the management of heart failure, pneumonia, and malignancy. Pleural effusion occurs when fluid collects between the parietal and visceral pleura. Processes causing a distortion in body fluid mechanics, such as in heart failure or nephrotic syndrome, tend to cause transudative effusions, wh...