BACKGROUND With the exception of areas with high prevalence of tuberculosis, medical thoracoscopy is becoming the diagnostic modality of choice for exudative pleural effusions. The aims of this study were to determine the diagnostic yield and safety of medical thoracoscopy for exudative pleural effusions and ascertain the etiology of such effusions in Qatar. METHODS This is a retrospective-de...

PURPOSE To study the association of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4073 in the interleukin-8 (IL-8) promoter region with the diagnosis and age of onset of exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in association with the known genetic risk factors for AMD and tobacco smoking. METHODS Medical records, smoking history and angiograms or fundus photographs of 301 patients with ...

PURPOSE To evaluate the value of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the differential diagnosis of pleural effusions. MATERIALS AND METHODS 58 pleural effusions (21 transudative, 37 exudative) were included in this prospective study. Single-shot echo-planar spin echo DWI was performed with two b factors (500 and 1000 s/mm (2)), and apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) were calculated. On di...

The causes and situation of exudative pleural effusion vary from one area to another. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 327 patients with exudative pleural effusion in South Khorasan province (Iran). The patients were older than 12 years and comprised 172 (52.6%) males and 155 (47.4%) females. The study commenced in 2007 with seven years duration. The Light’s criteria were used to define...

INTRODUCTION This study aimed to describe the morphology of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) as well as to obtain an estimate of the population-based incidence rate in Singapore. METHODS This is a retrospective hospital-based study of AMD cases seen in 1991 and 1992 at the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC), a tertiary eye centre. All case notes recorded with the International Classif...

PURPOSE Exudative age-related macular degeneration (exudative AMD) is a common vision-threatening disease, with both environmental and genetic factors contributing to its development. Recently, homozygosity for the 72Met variant of the pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) Met72Thr gene polymorphism (rs1136287) was identified as a novel risk factor for exudative AMD in Chinese patients from ...

BACKGROUND The exact pathogenetic mechanisms of Coats' disease remain unknown. In this report, we show two cases of Coats' disease that achieved a favorable prognosis with the combined treatment of intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) injection prior to photocoagulation, although both initially resisted photocoagulation therapy. CASE PRESENTATIONS Case 1 was a 15-year-old boy with initial visual ac...

BACKGROUND Effective therapeutic options are limited for the management of chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) complicated by exudative retinal detachments (RD). The authors describe the resolution of one such case following partial thickness scleral resection with mitomycin C. CASE PRESENTATION This 39-year-old male presented with a unilateral inferior exudative RD in the right e...

The eyes of 47 subjects with exudative age-related macular degeneration in the fellow eye were tested with a battery of visual function tests at baseline and followed for at least 18 mo. Fundus photographs also were obtained at baseline. These photographs were used to verify the absence of exudative lesions in the 47 eyes tested. Functional and funduscopic baseline data each were compared again...