Steven P Walker, Oliver Bintcliffe, Emma Keenan, Louise Stadon, Matthew Evison, Mohammed Haris, Thapas Nagarajan, Alex West, Alina Ionescu, Benjamin Prudon, Anur Guhan, Rehan Mustafa, Jurgen Herre, David Arnold, Rahul Bhatnagar, Brennan Kahan, Robert F Miller, Najib M Rahman, Nick A Maskell
OBJECTIVE: Refractory symptomatic transudative pleural effusions are an indication for pleural drainage. There has been supportive observational evidence for the use of indwelling pleural catheters (IPCs) for transudative effusions, but no randomised trials. We aimed to investigate the effect of IPCs on breathlessness in patients with transudative pleural effusions when compared with standard care. METHODS: A multicentre randomised controlled trial, in which patients with transudative pleural effusions were randomly assigned to either an IPC (intervention) or therapeutic thoracentesis (TT; standard care)...
February 2022: European Respiratory Journal