BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to identify the factors associated with the occurrence of pleural effusion and to investigate the characteristics of pleural effusion in scrub typhus. METHODS We conducted a retrospective analysis of the medical records of scrub typhus patients between January 2004 and December 2011 at Chosun University Hospital in South Korea. A total of 445 scrub typhus p...

INTRODUCTION Refractory pleural effusion in systemic immunoglobulin light chain amyloidosis without cardiac decompensation is rarely reported and has a poor prognosis in general (a median survival of 1.6 months). Moreover, the optimum treatment for this condition is still undecided. This is the first report on the successful use of vincristine, adriamycin and dexamethasone chemotherapy for refr...

Background: Pleural effusion is a common clinical problem resulting from thoracic or systemic diseases. Several biochemical parameters, serological and cytological markers are used to classify the type of pleural effusion. The oldest classification is Light’s criteria which categorizes exudates by meeting one of these criteria: Pleural to serum protein ratio> 0.5, pleural to serum LDH ratio> 0....

Pleural effusion is a rare complication in non-tuberculous mycobacterial infection. We report a case of Mycobacterium intracellulare pleuritis with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in a 69-year-old man presenting with dyspnea. Pleural effusion revealed lymphocyte dominant exudate. M. intracellulare was identified using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method and...

Malignant pleural effusions are common complications in patients with primary or metastatic cancer to the lungs. In this article, we describe a unique case of a patient with history of diffuse pulmonary metastases from gallbladder adenocarcinoma who acutely developed a bilious pleural effusion following endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. We believe the bilious pleural effusion (cho...

Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the usefulness of Adenosine deaminase levels of the pleural fluid in three different groups of patients and to confirm its usefulness in the diagnosis of tuberculous effusions. Materials and methods: 25 consecutive patients admitted with their first episode of pleural of were included in the study. The routine investigations were history, clinical examina...

Synchronous malignancies in a pleural effusion are rare. A case of concurrent pleural infiltration by adenocarcinoma of unknown primary site and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is presented in this case study, which was diagnosed by effusion cytology. Pleural effusion is not an uncommon complication in patients with B-CLL. Even in a pleural effusion rich in monoclonal lymphocytes, the presen...

Pleural effusion in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is poorly understood and rarely reported in the literature. When the pleural effusion is caused by leukemic pleural infiltration, the differential white blood cell count of the effusion is identical to that of the peripheral blood, and the fluid cytology reveals leukemic blasts. We report here a case of bilateral pleural involvement of atypical...

Pleural effusion is often a manifestation of the superior vena cava (SVC) syndrome. However, pleural effusion has never been reported to be a cause of the SVC syndrome. We report the case of a 68 yr old male patient who presented with SVC syndrome and respiratory failure, both attributable to an encapsulated pleural effusion over the right upper mediastinum. Simple drainage was performed as a d...

Pleural effusion secondary to lymphedema may be chronic, symptomatic and refractory to treatment, occasionally requiring invasive and painful procedures such as chemical pleurodesis, open pleural abrasion or pleurectomy to achieve control of the effusion and gain symptomatic relief. We report a patient with yellow nail syndrome and chronic pleural effusion successfully treated with pleuroperito...