Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Differentiation between malignant and non-malignant pleural effusion using cancer ratio and other new parameters.

Introduction In contrast to tuberculous pleurisy (TP), no accurate and commonly accepted biochemical marker of malignant pleural effusion (MPE) has been established. Objectives We aimed to: 1) evaluate the ability of previously reported cancer ratio (CR) to discriminate MPEs and non-MPEs, 2) test whether age may have additional value in differentiating MPEs and non MPEs, and if so, 3) to combine LDH and age with other TP biomarkers in search of an index useful in the identification of MPE. Patients and methods A retrospective analysis of data from 140 patients with malignant (n=74), tuberculous (n=37) and parapneumonic (n=29) pleural effusions was performed. The diagnostic performance of a test to discriminate between MPEs and non-MPEs was evaluated using Receiver Operating Characteristic. Results Three ratios showed the largest AUC: serum LDH/pleural fluid soluble Fas ligand, age/pleural fluid ADA and serum LDH/pleural fluid IL-18 and were characterized by a high sensitivity (95, 93.2, 92.9% respectively) and fair specificity (64.8, 71.2, 58.5% respectively) in discrimination MPE from non-MPEs. AUC for CR was lower than for aforementioned values and showed 94.6% sensitivity and 68.2% specificity. Conclusions Our study showed a lower specificity of CR in discriminating MPEs and non-MPEs than previously reported. We demonstrated that combinations of serum LDH with other pleural fluid biomarkers of TP have a similar diagnostic performance. We also found that age might be an important factor differentiating between MPEs and non-MPEs and propose a new age/pleural fluid ADA ratio which has a discriminative potential similar to that of CR.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app