Although several studies on tuberculous (TB) pleurisy suggest that the addition of corticosteroids to anti-TB therapy may have beneficial effects, these agents are not used routinely. To assess the effects of short-term oral prednisone therapy in TB pleurisy, 74 patients were randomly assigned in a double-blind fashion to treatment with either placebo or prednisone at a dose of 0.75 mg/kg/d for...

E A Dosumu, K Osagie, A Shuaib, Department of Medicine, National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria; and J A Momoh, Department of Chemical Pathology, National Hospital, Abuja. Corresponding author: Professor E A Dosumu, P O Box 8683, Wuse Post Office, Abuja, Nigeria. Email: [email protected] Introduction The necessity to improve diagnosis and the need to identify tuberculosis (TB) as a global crisis h...

We have found that natural killer (NK) cells were very active in pleural effusions containing Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Cytotoxicity against K562 and Raji was augmented when the mononuclear cells were cocultured for 18 hr with purified protein derivative (PPD) derived from M. tuberculosis culture supernatants. In pleural effusions of cancer patients, PPD-activated mononuclear cells were less ...

Tuberculous pleural effusions (TPEs) and malignant pleural effusions (MPEs) are difficult to differentiate between in certain clinical situations. Interleukin (IL)-33 is a cytokine that participates in inflammatory responses and may have a role in pleural effusions. The present study aimed to investigate the concentrations and potential differential significance of IL-33 in patients with TPE an...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To assess the functional sequelae (FS) of patients with tuberculous pleurisy (TP), to analyze the influence of different factors in the occurrence of these FS, and, finally, to evaluate the relationship between the FS and roentgenographic sequelae. DESIGN An observational, retrospective study. SETTING A community teaching hospital in Alicante, Spain. PATIENTS AND METHODS ...

Thoracoscopy is the most accurate yet most expensive tool for establishing the diagnosis of tuberculous (TB) pleurisy. However, most high TB-incidence regions have limited financial resources, lack the infrastructure needed for routine thoracoscopy and require an alternative, cost-effective diagnostic approach for pleural effusions. Altogether, 51 patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural eff...