Table 1. Reported range of pleural fluid cytology yield in malignant pleural effusion due to lung cancer according to different cell types.

Lung cancer cell type	Yield of pleural fluid cytology
Adenocarcinoma	78–82%
Squamous cell carcinoma	14–25%
Small cell carcinoma	44–53%
Miscellaneous	0–47%

The miscellaneous category includes undifferentiated NSCLC and sarcoma among others. Data from (13,14). NSCLC, non-small cell lung cancer.