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Adjunct strategies to enhance the efficacy of indwelling pleural catheters

  • Pleural Diseases and Mesothelioma (C Gary Lee, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Malignant pleural effusion remains a distressing and unfortunately common occurrence. Pleural palliation should be focused on relieving dyspnea with as few procedures as possible. The introduction of the indwelling tunneled pleural catheter has been shown to fulfill these goals; however, it is not without limitations. The ability to potentially combine the results of a long-term pleurodesis procedure without the need for a prolonged hospitalization remains an attractive option. While no large-scale trials have been completed nor is there widespread acceptance, the introduction of “rapid” or “accelerated” pleurodesis procedures, often using tunneled indwelling pleural catheters, have the potential to significantly change the current paradigm of malignant pleural effusion management. This article reviews the current data available for “rapid” and “accelerated” pleurodesis protocols and their outcomes.

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Compliance with ethics guidelines

Conflict of interest

Dr. Christopher Gilbert has no conflict of interest to disclose.

Dr. David Feller-Kopman reports personal fees from CareFusion, during the conduct of the study.

Human and animal rights and informed consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, Bronchoscopy and Interventional Pulmonology, Penn State College of Medicine-Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Mail Code H0141, 500 University Drive, Hershey, PA, 17033, USA

    Christopher R. Gilbert

  2. Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Section of Interventional Pulmonology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1800 Orleans Street, Suite 7-125, Baltimore, MD, 21287, USA

    David Feller-Kopman

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  1. Christopher R. Gilbert
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  2. David Feller-Kopman
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Correspondence to David Feller-Kopman.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Pleural Diseases and Mesothelioma

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IPC in place with Talc Poudrage (AVI 34138 kb)

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Gilbert, C.R., Feller-Kopman, D. Adjunct strategies to enhance the efficacy of indwelling pleural catheters. Curr Pulmonol Rep 4, 28–33 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13665-015-0110-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13665-015-0110-z

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