The purpose of this study was to determine whether the clinical and microbiological characteristics of parapneumonic effusions in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were different from those observed in patients without HIV infection. One hundred and thirty seven patients with parapneumonic effusions were included and divided in...

Twenty-three patients with nonspecific pleuritis were studied to determine clinical outcome. After a mean follow-up period of 6 months (1 to 36 months), a diagnosis was reached in 17 patients, while 6 patients remained unknown. The causes of the nonspecific pleuritis diagnosed on initial pleural biopsy were tuberculosis (11 patients, 48%), neoplasm (2 patients, 8.7%), parapneumonic effusion (1 ...

Background: Pleural fluid (PF) may be transudative or exudative. Total protein estimation from PF is used to detect exudative pleural effusion. Objectives: To determine the role of new suggested criteria consisting of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), total proteins (TP), and adenosine deaminase (ADA) in diagnosis of pleural effusion and differentiate it into transudative and exudative and also to c...

OBJECTIVE Angiopoietins are involved in the pathogenesis of a variety of human diseases. We tried to evaluate the application of pleural and serum Angiopoietin-1 and 2 in categorizing pleural effusions (PEs) into exudates and transudates in children. METHODS Pleural fluid (PF) and serum Angiopoietin (Ang)-1 and Ang-2 were measured in 80 children with PEs (40 transudative and 40 exudative) by ...

UNLABELLED Procalcitonin has been shown to be useful in separating infection from non-infective disorders. However, infection is often paralleled by tissue inflammation. Most studies supporting the use of procalcitonin were confounded by more significant inflammation in the infection group. Few studies have examined the usefulness of procalcitonin when adjusted for inflammation.Pleural inflamma...

Background: Tuberculous, parapneumonic and traumatic loculated pleural-effusions pose therapeutic challenges due to resultant pleural-thickening and compromised lung-function for life. Tuberculosis is widely prevalent in developing countries, necessitating appropriate, effective, and economical treatment for loculated pleural-effusion to reduce the burden and sequelae. <s...

OBJECTIVE A prospective randomized study was conducted in order to analyze the role of fibrinolytics in the treatment of complicated parapneumonic effusion. METHODS From 2001 to 2004, 127 consecutive patients were managed for thoracic empyema. In all cases the cause was bacterial pneumonia. Seventy patients were managed with sole tube thoracostomy (group A) and 57 with combination of tube tho...

Approximately 1 million patients develop parapneumonic effusions (PPEs) annually in the United States. The outcome of these effusions is related to the interval between the onset of clinical symptoms and presentation to the physician, comorbidities, and timely management. Early antibiotic treatment usually prevents the development of a PPE and its progression to a complicated PPE and empyema. P...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the role of intrapleural streptokinase in the management of complicated parapneumonic effusions in children. DESIGN Prospective comparative study. SETTING Cheng Kung University Hospital, a tertiary medical center in Tainan, Taiwan. PATIENTS AND METHODS We enrolled as our prospective study group 20 consecutive children with complicated parapneumonic effusions who rece...

AIM Clinical-epidemiological investigations for further assessing the importance of video-assisted thoracoscopy in the treatment y of patients with neoplastic pleurisy. MATERIALS AND METHODS The researches included a group of 72 patients (31.9% men and 68.1% women aged 31-81 years, mean age ± 60 years) with neoplastic pleurisy who underwent pleural symphysis by video-assisted thoracoscopic ta...