South African Medical Journal 2018 March 28 [Link]
Koegelenberg CFN1, Bennji SM, Boer E, Schubert PT, Shaw JA, Allwood BW, Irusen EM
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) represents a very common cause of pleural exudates, and is one of the most challenging pleural disorders to manage. This could be attributed to the paucity of high-quality experimental evidence, and inconsistent practice worldwide. South Africa (SA) currently has no data regarding the aetiology of MPE.
OBJECTIVES:
To identify the most common malignancies causing MPE in a population served by a large tertiary hospital in SA, and specifically the relative contribution of mesothelioma. A secondary objective was to evaluate the efficacy of chemical pleurodesis in a subset of patients.
METHODS:
We retrospectively included all known cases of MPE evaluated at our institution over a 3-year period with a tissue diagnosis of MPE.
RESULTS:
The most common causes of MPE in a total of 274 patients were lung cancer (n=174, 63.5%), breast cancer (n=32, 11.7%), unknown primary (n=22, 11.7%) and mesothelioma (n=27, 9.9%). Talc pleurodesis was performed in 81 of 194 patients (41.8%) referred to our division, and was radiologically successful in 22 of 25 (88.0%) followed up to 3 months.
CONCLUSIONS:
The main cause of MPE in our setting was lung cancer, followed by breast cancer, unknown primary and mesothelioma. Chemical pleurodesis was a viable palliative measure for MPE in this population.
from Mesothelioma Line https://ift.tt/2GNUTRU
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