A patient with left-sided pleural effusion

Abstract

A 56-year-old male patient was admitted to the Akdeniz University Hospital (Antalya, Turkey) with a sudden onset of stabbing epigastric pain, nausea and haematemesis. There was no history of trauma, or systemic or chronic disease. The patient was diagnosed as having gastritis and given appropriate treatment. Routine investigations, such as chest radiography, were not performed at this time.Two days later, the patient experienced fever, pain on the left side of the thorax, dyspnoea and a worsening of his general condition. Therefore, he was readmitted to the emergency department.In routine laboratory tests, there were no abnormal findings, with the exception of neutrophilia in peripheral blood. Chest radiography was performed and the results are shown in figure 1.