INTRODUCTION Pleural effusions are a common clinical problem and affect about one million people in the United States and United Kingdom each year. Over 60 causes of pleural effusion have been identified; establishing the definitive aetiology can be difficult, and often requires invasive procedures. Guidelines state that macroscopic examination of the fluid should be the first step in determini...

When a patient with an undiagnosed pleural effusion is evaluated, the first question to answer is whether the patient has a transudate or an exudate. This is best done using Light's criteria, but these criteria occasionally misidentify a transudate as an exudate. If the patient's pleural fluid meets exudative criteria, but the patient appears clinically to have a transudative effusion, then the...

Background Chylothorax is defined as abnormal accumulation of lymphatic fluid in the pleural space secondary to leakage from thoracic duct or one of its main tributaries. Congenital idiopathic chylothorax is the most common form of pleural effusion in neonates. Conservative therapy is the mainstay of treatment. An alternative...

STUDY OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship of the pleural fluid vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) level with the diagnostic category and with the pleural fluid characteristics in a group of 70 patients. DESIGN The VEGF levels of consecutive patients undergoing therapeutic thoracentesis were determined with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. SETTING...

BACKGROUND Definite diagnosis of transudative or exudative pleural fluids often presents a diagnostic dilemma. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether amino-terminal brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels in pleural fluid has a diagnostic value for discriminating heart-failure-related pleural effusions from non-heart-failure effusions. METHODS Sixty-six subjects (40 male, mean age...

Objectives. To study the diagnostic value of pleural fluid cholesterol in differentiating transudative and exudative pleural effusion. To compare pleural fluid cholesterol level for exudates with Light's criteria. Design. Cross sectional descriptive study. Settings. Medical wards of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. Methods. Sixty two cases of pleural effusion with definite clinical diagn...

The aim of this article is to present an overview of our 10 years clinical research work and early clinical experience with small pleural effusions. Small amounts of pleural fluid are severely difficult to identify with imaging methods (chest x-rays and ultrasound). Nevertheless, it may be an important finding, sometimes leading to a definitive diagnosis of pleural carcinomatosis, infection or ...

Introduction We investigated whether tumour markers carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), neuron-specific enolase (NSE), cancer antigen 125 (CA-125), and cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA 21-1) in pleural effusions and serum can be used to distinguish pleural effusion aetiology. Materials and methods During the first thoracentesis, we measured pleural fluid and serum tumour marker concentrations and c...

The value of determination of pleural fluid glucose, pH, lactic dehydrogenase, IgG, IgA, IgM, C3, C4, anti-IgG antibody, and hydroxyproline in distinguishing between pleural effusions caused by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and those resulting from other diseases was studied. The series comprised seven patients with RA and 115 patients with other diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus, tub...

This partly prospective, partly retrospective trial was performed in adult healthy volunteers to confirm the prevalence of sonographically visible physiological pleural and to establish possible individual variations of the presence and amount of pleural fluid over time as well as to asses relations in between pleural fluid and individual characteristics like age, sex, body mass index, smoking ...