Table 1.
Demographics and characteristics of pleural effusions (n = 508).
| Age (years) | 78, range 67–85 |
| Male | 292 (57.48%) |
| Smoking | 298 (58.66%) |
| Charlson comorbidity index | 5, range 3–5.5 |
| Apache score | 10, range 7–15 |
| Sofa score | 2, range 1–3 |
| Department of admission | |
| Pulmonary department | 312 (61.42%) |
| Internal medicine | 108 (21.26%) |
| Surgical department | 40 (7.87%) |
| Cardiology department | 36 (7.09%) |
| Intensive care unit | 12 (2.36%) |
| Days of admission | |
| Heart failure | 10 |
| Malignant pleural effusion | 8 |
| Pleural infection | 10 |
| Organ failure | 10.5 |
| Pulmonaty embolism | 12 |
| Connective tissue diseases | 8.5 |
| Tuberculosis | 12.5 |
| Other exudates | 10 |
| Multiple benign etiologies | 13 |
| Type of CT | |
| Thorax | 278 (54.7%) |
| Abdominal | 92 (18.1%) |
| CTPA∧ | 78 (15.35%) |
| Thorax & abdominal | 60 (11.81%) |
| Distribution | |
| Unilateral | 255 (50.2%) |
| Bilateral | 253 (49.8%) |
| Size of effusion | |
| Small | 277 (54.53%) |
| Medium | 138 (27.17%) |
| Large | 93 (18.31%) |
| Thoracentesis | 201 (39.57%) |
| Transudate | 41 (20.4%) |
| Exudate | 160 (79.6%) |
| Diagnosis | |
| Heart failure | 158 (31.1%) |
| Malignant pleural effusion | 112 (22.05%) |
| Pleural infection | 90 (17.72%) |
| Organ failure | 44 (8.66%) |
| Other exudates* | 37 (7.28%) |
| Pulmonary embolism | 24 (4.72%) |
| Multiple benign etiologies | 23 (4.53%) |
| Connective tissue diseases | 16 (3.15%) |
| Tuberculosis | 4 (0.79%) |
∧
CTPA, computed tomography pulmonary angiography,
*
post coronary artery bypass graft, post-surgery, pancreatic disease, abdominal abscess, hemothorax, drug related, undiagnosed.