BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE CA-125, an ovarian tumor marker is known to increase in non malignant conditions such as tubercular and non tubercular pleuritis and ascites. We undertook this study to evaluate non-specific rise in CA-125 levels in conditions associated with pleural effusion and ascites and also to understand the mechanism of its secretion. METHODS CA-125 levels in 38 pleural and 46 as...

PURPOSE To assess whether exclusion of patients with conditions that could lead to large fluctuations of serum glucose, would increase the accuracy of pleural fluid glucose in predicting pleurodesis outcome in patients with malignant pleural effusion subjected to bleomycin pleurodesis. METHODS A retrospective analysis of 162 patients with recurrent, symptomatic malignant pleural disease was p...

nature) can usually be explained by either increased pleural fluid formation or decreased pleural fluid absorption, or both. Pleural effusions caused by an increase in pleural fluid formation can be further subdivided into elevation in hydrostatic pressure (e.g., congestive heart failure), decreased colloid osmotic pressure (e.g., cirrhosis, nephrotic syndrome), increased capillary permeability...

Pleural fluid cytology is usually the initial diagnostic tool in pleural fluid analysis. However, the conventional cytological evaluation of pleural effusion in detecting malignancy has a sensitivity wide range – from 22 to 81%. Measurement of carcinoembryogenic antigen (CEA) level in pleural fluid may be valuable in the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusion. The study was performed on 70 dif...

A high percentage of pleural effusions remain unexplained despite an intensive diagnostic workup. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infections occur worldwide and affect the majority of the population. The present study investigated the prevalence and clinical relevance of EBV in pleural effusions. A prospective study was performed in which 60 consecutive patients with pleural effusion were enrolled. Re...

PURPOSE Pleural effusion, an accumulation of fluid in the pleural space, usually occurs in patients when the rate of fluid formation exceeds the rate of fluid removal. The differential diagnosis of tuberculous pleurisy and malignant pleural effusion is a difficult task in high tuberculous prevalence areas. The aim of the present study was to identify novel biomarkers for the diagnosis of pleura...

Tuberculous pleurisy is a good model for resolution of local cellular immunity. It would be expected that tuberculous pleural fluid contains a variety of immunologically important cytokines because of the accumulation of immunocompetent cells in the pleural cavity. We studied interleukin 1 (IL-1), interleukin 2 (IL-2), and interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) levels in pleural fluid of 20 patients with...

A prospective study was performed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of N-terminal-pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels, measured simultaneously in serum and pleural fluid, in identifying pleural effusions due to heart failure. Pleural fluid and serum samples from all patients presenting for thoracentesis between April 2004 and May 2005 were simultaneously collected. The discrimin...

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the oldest and commonest infectious diseases also known as “master of Death”. Pulmonary TB (PTB) and TB with pleural effusion remains a diagnostic challenge. Adenosine deaminase (ADA) is an enzyme of purine catabolism which is an inexpensive and easy test in early routine evaluation of patients with pleural effusion. Aim: To assess the diagnostic level of ADA in TB p...