Diagnosing malignant pleural effusion using clinical and analytical parameters

摘要

Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is common and diagnosis is often problematic. A cancer ratio (serum lactate dehydrogenases: pleural adenosine deaminase ratio) has been proposed for diagnosing MPE. However, the usefulness of this “cancer ratio” and the clinical‐radiological criteria for diagnosing MPE has not been clearly determined to date. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of those parameters in the diagnosis of MPE.