Tuberculous Pleural effusion diagnosis by detection of Alkaline Phosphatase in Serum and Pleural fluid

Tuberculous Pleural effusion is one of the most frequent causes of exudates in large series of pleural effusions in immunocompetent patients. The Aim of this study is to estimate enzyme Alkaline Phosphatase levels in serum and pleural fluids of HIV seronegative exudative Tuberculous Pleural fluids and their possible role in the diagnosis of tubercular pleural effusion. Serum and Pleural fluid samples were collected from symptomatic cases of pleural effusion, with known HIV status negative and also from Non Tuberculous pleural effusion patients attending General medicine and TB and Chest Department of Government Medical College and Hospital at Ananthapuram for one year. Alkaline phosphatase was estimated by p-Nitrophenol method kinetic. The Mean value of serum and pleural fluid alkaline phosphatase among HIV negative patients with tuberculous effusion was 95.7±51.3 and 83.5±36.9 respectively. Alkaline phosphatase was also assessed among serum and pleural fluid of non-tuberculous pleural effusion patients and the mean value of serum ALKP was 140.96±54.5 and pleural fluid ALKP was 140.4±38.9. Serum alkaline phosphatase levels were not of significant p value in this study. Earlier studies on alkaline phosphatase were also of not any significance in the diagnosis of tuberculous pleural effusion.