Malignant pleural effusions are both a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for clinicians. A reasonable approach used at our institution for diagnosing malignant effusions is presented. The presence of a malignant effusion generally portends a worse outcome, and thus preserving quality of life is of utmost importance in its management. Clinicians must balance the morbidity of aggressive diagno...

We read with interest the report by Assi and colleagues1 on the distribution of transudates and exudates between cytolog¬ ically proved malignant pleural effusions. The authors found that one of the 98 patients with malignant pleural effusions enrolled in the study, had a borderline transudate and had congestive heart failure at the time of the thoracentesis. The authors concluded that cytologi...

Recurrent pleural effusions occurring in association with immunoglobulin light chain amyloidosis and not associated with amyloid cardiomyopathy are rare. These portend an overall poor prognosis with mean survival time of approximately 1.8 months. We hereby report a case of a 59-year-old Caucasian female with recurrent pleural effusions and an ultimate diagnosis of pulmonary amyloidosis in assoc...

is required for the conversion of adenosine to inosine. Its increase has been related to T-lymphocyte differentiation and to stimulation of cellular immunity in pleural effusions due to tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and empyema.1 In cases of carcinomatous pleural effusions,' it may depend on the increased metabolic activity indicated by decreases in the glucose level and increases in the ...

Pleural biomarkers allowing to mini-invasively discriminate benign from malignant pleural effusions are needed. Among potential candidates, microparticles (MPs) are extracellular vesicles that vectorize antigen derived from the parent cell. We hypothesized that tumor-derived MPs could be present in the pleural liquid and help to identify patients with malignant pleural effusions. Using highly s...

OBJECTIVE To describe the range of pathology causing pleural effusions in HIV infected patients with acute respiratory episodes and to attempt to identify whether any associated radiological abnormalities enabled aetiological discrimination. METHODS Prospective study of chest radiographs of 58 consecutive HIV infected patients with pleural effusion and their microbiological, cytological, and ...

The antinuclear antibodies (ANA) test has been a cornerstone of the evaluation of connective tissue disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic value of the ANA test in pleural or pericardial effusions of unknown causes. Over a 3-yr period, a total of 126 pleural fluid and 30 pericardial fluid samples were analysed. ANA tests were performed using a commercially available ki...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Medical thoracoscopy, also called pleuroscopy, has received renewed interest in the recent past for diagnostic as well as therapeutic uses. In this study, we describe our experience with thoracoscopy for undiagnosed pleural effusions. METHODS In a retrospective analysis of thoracoscopic procedures we performed between January 2007 and December 2008, yield of thoracoscopic ...