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...

Lung cancer rarely involves the peritoneum without involvement of other metastatic sites. The most common regions of metastasis are the pleura, lung parenchyma, skeletal system, liver, brain, and adrenal glands. Compared with pleural metastasis, peritoneal involvement is rarely encountered in lung carcinoma. Ascites development is often described during late stages of the disease, following dia...

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 ...

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 ...

The objective of the study was to determine if residual pleural thickening after treatment for pleural tuberculosis could be predicted from the pleural fluid findings at the time of the initial thoracentesis. Forty-four patients initially diagnosed as having pleural tuberculosis between January 1986 and January 1988 were separated into two groups: the 23 patients in group 1 had residual pleural...

Pleural effusion occurs infrequently in patients with cirrhosis of the liver, almost always in the presence of clinically obvious ascites. Although the mechanism of fluid transfer into the thorax is controversial, the main factor seems to be the presence of defects in the membranous parts of the diaphragm. This is usually on the right side. Subsequent infection of the pleural fluid is believed ...

BACKGROUND Detection of pneumococcal antigen may help to increase the rate of diagnosis of pneumococcal pneumonia. This study was designed to determine the value of rapid detection of pneumococcal antigen in pleural fluid from patients with community acquired pneumonia. METHODS Thoracentesis was performed in patients suspected of having empyema and in patients with pneumonia of unknown aetiol...

Some proand anti-inflammatory cytokines and angiogenesis-related factors play important roles in the inflammatory response after surgery. To study their kinetics and mutual relationships after major lung resection for lung cancer, concentrations of interleukin (IL)-6, -8 and -10 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were measured in serum and pleural fluid. Venous blood and pleural flui...

Clinical and immunologic evidence suggests that tuberculous pleuritis provides a model to understand protective immune mechanisms against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We therefore evaluated the pattern of cytokine mRNA expression and cytokine production in pleural fluid and blood of patients with tuberculous pleuritis. RNA was extracted from mononuclear cells, reverse transcribed to cDNA, and am...

Carcinoma of the ovary is the leading cause of death from gynecological cancer in western countries. Ovarian carcinoma is commonly associated with the accumulation of fluid containing malignant cells in the peritoneal, and not infrequently in the pleural cavity. The differentiation of these cells from reactive mesothelial cells is at times difficult. In addition, tumor progression in ovarian ca...