A 13-year-old boy with no risk factors for lung cancer presented with a massive left-sided pleural effusion and a mediastinal shift on chest radiography and computed tomography. A chest tube drained bloody pleural fluid with an exudative pattern. A pleural biopsy and wedge biopsy of the left lower lobe revealed mucinous adenocarcinoma in the left lower lobe wedge biopsy and metastatic adenocarc...

Pleural effusion is a commonly encountered medical problem. Its clinical and radiological features often fail to identify the underlying cause. Pleural fluid aspiration and needle biopsy of pleura are initial diagnostic procedures to ascertain the aetiology of effusion. Both these procedures are performed under local anaesthesia and cariy a low risk of complication. Being a blind procedure, ade...

Pleural involvement with systemic amyloidosis has been reported rarely in the literature. Diagnosis of this entity by percutaneous needle biopsy of the pleura has been described only in two prior case reports. We describe five patients in whom the diagnosis of pleural amyloidosis was established by Cope needle biopsy during evaluation of pleural effusions of indeterminate cause. Three patients ...

BACKGROUND A closed pleural biopsy is commonly performed for diagnosing patients exhibiting pleural effusion if prior thoracentesis is not diagnostic. However, the diagnostic yield of such biopsies is unsatisfactory. Instead, a thoracoscopic pleural biopsy is more useful and less painful. METHODS We compared the diagnostic yield of needle thoracoscopic pleural biopsy performed under local ane...

background malignant pleural mesothelioma (mpm) is an uncommon neoplasm. mpm occurs more frequently in patients born or living in certain villages of turkey. objectives we aimed to review radiological findings of mpm. patients and methods we reviewed the ct findings in 219 biopsy-proven mpm patients admitted to our clinic between 1993 and 2008. results the most common ct findings included pleur...

Up to 25% of malignant pleural effusions can remain undiagnosed following history, physical examination, thoracentesis, and percutaneous closed pleural biopsy. The next diagnostic procedure is often rigid thoracoscopy, an invasive procedure requiring an operating suite and usually a postprocedure chest tube. We performed flexible fiberoptic pleuroscopy using a fiberoptic bronchoscope in conjunc...

In a prospective study pleural biopsy specimens obtained with a Tru-cut needle were compared with those obtained with an Abrams pleural biopsy punch from 36 patients in Zimbabwe judged to have an effusion of at least 1.5 litres; one patient had two biopsies. Both instruments were used on each patient, the Abrams punch being followed by the Tru-cut needle. There were no serious complications. Th...

To determine if patients who had lymphocyte-rich pleural effusion and a pleural biopsy without any specific findings could be histopathologically differentiated between those with tuberculous and nontuberculous pleuritis, we histologically re-evaluated the pleural biopsies of all patients whose pleural effusion was predominant with lymphocytes and contained no malignant cells. A total of 40 pat...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To compare the diagnostic sensitivity of a modified Abrams needle pleural biopsy technique (A1) with the standard Abrams (A2) and Cope needle biopsy methods. The modified Abrams pleural biopsy technique consisted of suctioning each tissue sample into a syringe without removing the needle completely from the chest until the completion of the entire procedure. Both the standard Ab...

BACKGROUND Although there are many methods including AFB smear and culture, and the analysis of pleural fluid in the etiological diagnosis of pleural effusion, it is sometimes difficult to confirm a diagnosis especially in cases of incomplete pleural biopsies. Moreover, the high incidence of tuberculous pleuritis in young people caused confusion in the differential diagnosis of pleural effusion...