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Endoscopic ultrasound-guided transesophageal thoracentesis for minimal pleural effusion

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Abstract

Background

Pleural effusion is a common finding both in patients with benign and malignant diseases of pleura and lung with diagnostic thoracentesis establishing the diagnosis in the majority of cases. The diagnostic thoracentesis can be done either blindly or under the guidance of ultrasound or computed tomography. However, minimal pleural effusion is difficult to sample even under image guidance. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is known to detect smaller volume of pleural effusion and, thus, can help in guiding thoracentesis.

Aim

To analyze the safety and efficacy of EUS-guided diagnostic thoracentesis in patients with undiagnosed minimal pleural effusion retrospectively.

Methods

Retrospective analysis of the data of patients with minimal pleural effusion, who underwent EUS-guided transesophageal diagnostic thoracentesis over last 2 years, was performed.

Results

Thirteen patients (11 male; mean age 46.7 ± 16.2 years) with undiagnosed minimal pleural effusion underwent successful EUS-guided transesophageal diagnostic thoracentesis using a 22-G needle. Seven (53%) patients had fever on presentation whereas two presented with cough and loss of appetite. Eight to 54 mL fluid was aspirated with an attempt to completely empty the pleural cavity. There were no complications of the procedure.

Conclusions

EUS-guided diagnostic thoracentesis is a safe and effective alternative for evaluating patients with minimal pleural effusion.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

All the authors have contributed to and agreed on the content of this manuscript. Contribution of the authors is as follows: 1. Surinder S Rana: conception of the study, acquisition of the data, drafting, and critical revision of the article, 2. Ravi Sharma: acquisition of the data and drafting of the article, 3. Rajesh Gupta: critical revision of the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Surinder Singh Rana.

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Conflict of interest

SSR, RS, and RG declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics statement

The study was performed in a manner to conform with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and 2008 concerning human and animal rights, and the authors followed the policy concerning informed consent as shown on Springer.com.

The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board and ethics committee.

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Rana, S.S., Sharma, R. & Gupta, R. Endoscopic ultrasound-guided transesophageal thoracentesis for minimal pleural effusion. Indian J Gastroenterol 37, 231–234 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12664-018-0861-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12664-018-0861-x

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