Analysis of Etiology of 120 Cases of Pleural Effusion

Objective The pleural effusion was generally witnessed in clinical practice.Accurate discrimination between benign and malignant pleural effusion was very important for treatment and prognosis.To investigate the etiology of pleural effusion and to improve the efficiency of diagnosis and differential diagnosis.Methods 120 cases of inpatients with pleural effusion were analyzed retrospectively,the etiology of the disease was investigated.Results In 50 cases of pleural effusions with benign origin(42%),37 cases(74%) were caused by tuberculosis,3 cases(6%) were caused by heart failure,9 cases(18%) were due to pneumonia and 1 cases were attributed to hypoproteinemia.51(43%) cases were diagnosed as malignant pleural effusion,there were 19 cases with ambiguous diagnosis.Conclusion Tuberculosis and malignant tumor were the major causes of pleural effusion.