Diagnostic approach to pleural diseases: new tricks for an old trade

The effect of frailty on mortality and hospital admission in patients with benign pleural disease in Wales: a cohort study

BACKGROUND

Pleural disease is common, representing 5% of the acute medical workload, and its incidence is rising, partly due to the ageing population. Frailty is an important feature and little is known about disease progression in patients with frailty and pleural disease. We aimed to examine the effect of frailty on mortality and other relevant outcomes in patients diagnosed with pleural disease.

METHODS

In this cohort study in Wales, the national Secure Anonymised Information Linkage databank was used to identify a cohort of individuals diagnosed with non-malignant pleural disease between Jan 1, 2005, and March 1, 2023, who were not known to have left Wales. Frailty was assessed at diagnosis of pleural disease using an electronic Frailty Index. The primary outcome was time from diagnosis to all-cause mortality for all patients. Data were analysed using multilevel mixed-effects Cox proportional hazards regression adjusting for the prespecified covariates of age, sex, Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation quintile, smoking status, comorbidity, and subtype of pleural disease.

FINDINGS

54 566 individuals were included in the final sample (median age 66 years [IQR 47-77]; 26 477 [48·5%] were female and 28 089 [51·5%] were male). By the end of the study period, 25 698 (47·1%) participants had died, with a median follow-up of 1·0 years (IQR 0·2-3·6). There was an association between frailty and all-cause mortality, which increased as frailty worsened. Compared with fit individuals, there was increasing mortality for those with mild frailty (adjusted hazard ratio 1·11 [95% CI 1·08-1·15]; p<0·0001), moderate frailty (1·25 [1·20-1·31]; p<0·0001), and severe frailty (1·36 [1·28-1·44]; p<0·0001).

INTERPRETATION

Independent of age and comorbidities, frailty status at diagnosis of pleural disease appeared to be useful as a prognostic indicator. Patients with moderate or severe frailty had a rapid decline in health. Future patients should be assessed for frailty at the time of diagnosis of pleural disease and might benefit from optimised care and advance care planning.

FUNDING

Cardiff University's Wellcome Trust iTPA funding award.

Role of medical thoracoscopy in the diagnosis of pleural effusions

BACKGROUND

Medical thoracoscopy (semi-rigid and rigid thoracoscopy) have revolutionized the management of undiagnosed pleural effusions. Though semi-rigid thoracoscopy has a good diagnostic yield in malignant and tubercular effusions, its role in the management of a complicated pleural effusions is debatable. Hence, rigid thoracoscopy becomes handy in these cases. The present study looked into the role of medical thoracoscopy in the diagnosis of pleural effusions in different conditions.

METHODS

This study included all patients who underwent medical thoracoscopy at our center between May-2010 and March-2020. Basic demographics data, type of medical thoracoscopy used, and histopathology details were collected and analyzed.

RESULTS

A total of 373 patients were subjected to medical thoracoscopy (202 semi-rigid thoracoscopy and 171 rigid thoracoscopy). Out of whom 246 (66%) were males, the mean age was 51.9 ± 13.2 years. Diagnosis was achieved in 370 patients with a yield of 99.2%. The diagnostic yield in semi-rigid thoracoscopy was 99.5% with lung malignancy being the most common diagnosis (41%; n = 81), followed by tuberculosis (31%; n = 61). The diagnostic yield in rigid thoracoscopy was 100% in our study. Along with high diagnostic yield, complete drainage and lung expansion was seen in 93.5% (160 out of 171 patients) without requiring a second procedure.

CONCLUSIONS

Semi-rigid thoracoscopy and rigid thoracoscopy should complement each other in the diagnosis of pleural effusions. Rigid thoracoscopy should be considered as the procedure of choice in a complicated pleural effusion.

Mortality Among Hospitalized Patients With Pleural Effusions. A Multicenter, Observational, Prospective Study

Background

Data regarding the prognostic significance of pleural effusion (PE) are scarce.

Objective

Explore the impact of PE on mortality among hospitalized patients.

Methods

Multicenter prospective observational study. Patients that underwent computed tomography (thorax and/or abdomen) and in which PE was detected, were admitted to the study. PE was classified by size on CT, anatomical distribution, diagnosis, and Light's criteria. Charlson comorbidity index (CCI), APACHE II, and SOFA score were calculated. Mortality at 1 month and 1 year were recorded.

Results

Five hundred and eight subjects, mean age 78 years. Overall mortality was 22.6% at 1 month and 49.4% at 1 year. Bilateral effusions were associated with higher mortality than unilateral effusions at 1 month (32 vs. 13.3%, p = 0.005) and large effusions with higher mortality than small effusions at 1 year (66.6 vs. 43.3%, p < 0.01). On multivariate analysis age, CCI, APACHE II, SOFA score, and bilateral distribution were associated with short-term mortality, while long-term significant predictors were CCI, APACHE II, SOFA, and malignant etiology. Exudates (excluding MPE) exhibited a survival benefit at both 1 month and 1 year but due to the smaller sample, fluid characteristics were not included in the multivariate analysis.

Conclusions

Pleural effusion is a marker of advanced disease. Mortality is higher within the first month in patients with PEs related to organ failure, while patients with MPE have the worst long-term outcome. Independent predictors of mortality, apart from CCI, APACHE II, and SOFA scores, are age and bilateral distribution in the short-term, and malignancy in the long-term.

Evolution of semi-rigid thoracoscopy

Pleural effusions despite being so common, there is no much literature available regarding definite diagnosis for pleural effusions. Application of Light's criteria changed the approach to pleural effusion and till date remains a very useful step in the diagnosis of pleural effusions. Pleural fluid biochemistry and adenosine deaminase (ADA) enzyme levels play a significant role in the diagnosis of tubercular effusion. Studies have shown that levels of ADA are more often higher in tubercular effusion than in any other cause for it. But ADA levels can also be elevated in other types of parapneumonic effusions (PPEs), especially complicated PPEs. Hence it is difficult to distinguish a tubercular pleural effusion (TPE) from other PPEs based on pleural fluid ADA levels alone. LDH/ADA ratio as an indicator for ruling out tuberculosis was analyzed in few studies with high sensitivity and specificity. The pleural fluid cytology has a varying sensitivity, with a maximum of only 60% and it may increase with subsequent tapping. Closed pleural biopsy using a Cope or Abrams needle has a sensitivity up to 80% in cases of tuberculous effusion and 40%-73% in cases of Malignancies. Semi-rigid thoracoscopy not only allows for visualization of the pleura but also helps in procuring the biopsies under direct visualization from the abnormal looking areas. In cases of primary pleural malignancies like mesothelioma, pleurodesis can also be done in the same setting after taking the biopsy, hence reducing the number of procedures. Limitation of the semi-rigid thoracoscopy is smaller sample size and more superficial sampling of the pleura. Cryobiopsy and Electrocautery guided pleural biopsy using the IT knife are the modifications in the semi-rigid thoracoscopy to overcome the drawback of smaller sample size. While navigation band image guided pleuroscopy helps in better visualization of the vasculature of pleura during the biopsy. Management of pleural effusions has evolved over a period of time. Starting with a single criterion based on pleural fluid proteins to semi-rigid thoracoscopy. The inexhaustible research in this field suggests the desperate need for a gold standard procedure with cost effectiveness in the management of undiagnosed pleural effusions. Semi-rigid thoracoscopy has revolutionized the management of undiagnosed pleural effusions, but it has its own limitations. Various modifications have been proposed and tried to overcome the limitations to make it a cost-effective procedure.

Setting up a Pleural Disease Service

Pleural disease incidence is continuing to rise internationally and management is becoming increasingly complex. There are now many more options for patients, with access to thoracic ultrasound, image-guided biopsies, indwelling pleural catheters, and local-anesthetic pleuroscopy (thoracoscopy). Safety reports have also highlighted the need for specialist operator knowledge and skill. Consequently, the development of a specialized pleural service can manage patients entirely as an outpatient, limit the number of procedures, and improve patient safety, it also fosters opportunities to enhance specialist procedural skills, engage in clinical research, and reduce the costs of care.

Pleural cryobiopsy during local anaesthetic thoracoscopy in dry pleural dissemination

A minimally invasive thoracic intervention, such as local anaesthetic thoracoscopy, can be used to collect the samples in malignant pleural lesions. But cancerous pleurisy without pleural effusion, called dry pleural dissemination, is considered difficult to perform thoracoscopy from concerns about pleural injury. We present a diagnosed case of dry pleural dissemination safely sampled using cryobiopsy using flex-rigid thoracoscope under local anaesthesia.