No abstract

Malignant pleural effusions are a poor prognostic factor in the setting of lung cancer, which includes minimal effusions not amenable to tapping.

No abstract

Applying a decision tree analysis that contains simple clinical and laboratory data can help in the differential diagnosis of tuberculous and malignant pleural effusions.

We aimed to determine the incidence, clinical consequences and microbiological findings related to the presence of pleural effusion in community-acquired pneumonia, and to identify predictive factors for empyema/complicated parapneumonic effusion.We analysed 4,715 consecutive patients with community-acquired pneumonia from two acute care hospitals. Patients were classified into three groups: no pleural effusion, uncomplicated parapneumonic effusion and empyema/complicated parapneumonic effusion.A total of 882 (19%) patients had radiological evidence of pleural fluid, of whom 261 (30%) met criteria for empyema/complicated parapneumonic effusion. The most important event related to the presence of uncomplicated parapneumonic effusion was a longer hospital stay. Relevant clinical and microbiological consequences were associated with empyema/complicated parapneumonic effusion. Five independent baseline characteristics could predict the development of empyema/ complicated parapneumonic effusion: age ,60 yrs (p50.012), alcoholism (p50.002), pleuritic pain (p50.002), tachycardia .100 beats?min -1 (p50.006) and leukocytosis .15,000 mm -3 (p,0.001). A higher incidence of anaerobes and Gram-positive cocci was found in this subgroup of patients. We conclude that only the development of empyema/complicated parapneumonic effusion carried relevant consequences; this condition should be suspected in the presence of some baseline characteristics and managed by using antimicrobials active against Gram-positive cocci and anaerobes.

No abstract

We aimed to investigate whether pleural fluid concentrations of biomarkers for bacterial infection, namely triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells (sTREM-1), procalcitonin (PCT), lipopolysaccharide-binding protein (LBP) and C-reactive protein (CRP), might identify infectious effusions and discriminate between complicated (CPPEs) and uncomplicated parapneumonic effusions (UPPEs).Stored pleural fluid samples from 308 patients with different causes of pleural effusion were used to measure the four biomarkers. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis determined the accuracy of the new tests.Median pleural fluid levels of CRP, sTREM-1 and LBP were significantly higher in CPPE compared with those in other aetiologies. The area under the curve for distinguishing infectious (parapneumonics and tuberculosis) from noninfectious effusions was 0.87 for CRP, 0.86 for sTREM-1, 0.57 for PCT and 0.87 for LBP. Regarding the discrimination of nonpurulent CPPE versus UPPE, a multivariate analysis found that pleural fluid glucose f60 mg?dL -1 , LBP o17 mg?mL -1 and CRP o80 mg?L -1 were the best parameters. Individually, none of the new biomarkers achieved better performance characteristics than pH, glucose or lactate dehydrogenase in labelling CPPE.In conclusion, elevated pleural fluid levels of CRP, sTREM and LBP identify patients with infectious effusions, particularly those with CPPE. PCT has no value for the differential diagnosis of pleural effusions.

Pleural fluid mesothelin provides additional diagnostic value relative to cytological examination. Mesothelin measurements are reproducible and not affected by inflammatory pleural processes.