Malignant pleural effusion is usually caused due to either a primary malignancy of pleura or secondary invasion of pleura by the primary focus of malignancy in any other organ of body. Usually malignant pleural effusion is caused by cancer of lung, cancer of breast or sometimes it can be due to lymphomas.
Symptoms-
1. Malignant pleural effusion is usually unilateral and massive.2. Main important symptom of pleural effusion is that the fluid gets re-accumulated very rapidly after aspiration.
3. Pleural fluid is usually hemorrhagic.
4. Pleural fluid has high erythrocyte count, high protein content; high LDH level and total leucocyte count is also very high.
5. Whereas glucose level of pleural fluid is low. Lymphocytes are present in excess in pleural fluid in malignant pleural effusion.
Investigations-
2. Pleural fluid protein content measurement test.
3. Pleural fluid LDH level and glucose level estimation tests.
4. Pleural biopsy.
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