Category: Journal Club

Journal Club February 2022
Diagnostic sensitivity of pleural fluid cytology in malignant pleural effusions: systematic review and meta-analysis. Kassirian S, et al. Thorax. PMID: 35110369 Pleural fluid cytology to diagnose malignancy is one of the cornerstones of pleural diagnostics. Which is why it rather surprising that this is the first meta-analysis on the topic. Published in Thorax the pooled results…

Journal Club January 2022
The Steroid Therapy and Outcome of Parapneumonic Pleural Effusions (STOPPE): A Pilot Randomized Trial. Fitzgerald DB, et al. AJRCCM. PMID: 35081010. A trailblazing study from Fitzgerald and colleagues in Australia reporting results from the STOPPE trial. This is a multicentre double-blind placebo controlled trial of a short course of intravenous dexamethasone versus placebo in patients…

Journal Club December 2021
The Frequency, Risk Factors and Management of Complications from Pleural Procedures. Sundaralingam A,et al. Chest. 2021 Dec 8:S0012-3692(21)04433-0. doi: 10.1016/j.chest.2021.11.031. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34896096 Review. A comprehensive narrative literature review from the Oxford team around the rate of complications and adverse events from pleural procedures. They screened an impressive 4308 studies, with 48 identified for…

Journal Club November 2021
Non-Traumatic Chylothorax and Chylopericardium: Diagnosis and Treatment Using an Algorithmic Approach Based on Novel Lymphatic Imaging. Gurevich A, et al. Ann Am Thorac Soc. PMID: 34797746 Recurrent chylothoraces can be tricky to manage with significant variation in strategies between centres. This interesting study used magnetic resonance imaging of lymphatics to assess the different physiological patterns in…

Journal Club October 2021
Role of thoracic ultrasonography in pleurodesis pathways for malignant pleural effusions (SIMPLE): an open-label, randomised controlled trial. Psallidas I, et al. Lancet Respir Med. PMID: 34634246 We had a sneak peek of these exciting results at the pleural research day so it is great to see the SIMPLE trial getting the recognition it deserves in a…

Journal Club September 2021
Objective Thoracoscopic Criteria in Differentiation between Benign and Malignant Pleural Effusions. Ellayeh M, et al. Respiration. 2021 Aug 30:1-11. doi: 10.1159/000517910. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34515216 An observational study from the Oxford group looking the correlation between macroscopic appearances at medical thoracoscopy and the final diagnosis. Although such analyses have been done before this…
