Abstract 986
Background
Pleural effusion results from either malignant or nonmalignant conditions, cytological examination of pleural fluid is diagnostic only in about 50% of malignant pleural effusions. Cancer ratio (serum serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)/pleural adenosine deaminase (ADA) may be helpfull in cancer diagnosis of patients with exudative pleural effusion, we investigated this issue along with CEA ratio (pleural CEA/serum CEA)
Methods
This study included 60 patients referred to Clinical Oncology & Nuclear Medicine and Chest Departments Menoufia University hospital in the period from January 2016 to January 2017 presented with exudative pleural effusion the mean age was 67.20 + 11.12. 33 patients out of 60 were males and 27 were females, patients were classified into 3 groups, group I included 20 patients with malignant plueral effusion, group II included 20 patients with tuberculous pleural effusion and group III included 20 patients with parapneumonic pleural effusion. The cancer patients group included stage IV disease: 10 patients had bronchogenic carcinoma, 2 patients had pleural mesothelioma, 5 patients had breast cancer and 3 patients with ovarian cancer. All patients underwent thoracentesis and cytology, Serum LDH, pleural ADA, serum and pleural CEA were done then data was statistically analyzed and the cut off value for cancer ratio and CEA ratio was done
Results
Cancer ratio was significantly higher in the patients with malignant pleural effusion 59.32 ± 8.19 than the tuberculous group 5.72 ± .15 than patients with parapneumonic effusion 10.30 ± .79, (p
Conclusions
Cancer ratio at cut off point (5.03) is a simple method which can discriminate malignant pleural effusion with sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 87%.
Clinical trial identification
Legal entity responsible for the study
menoufia university
Funding
None
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.