Tumor Markers in Pleural Fluid: A Comprehensive Study on Diagnostic Accuracy
<b>Background/Objectives</b>: Malignant pleural effusions (MPEs) pose a significant challenge in clinical practice and exert a considerable socio-economic burden on the healthcare system, affecting approximately 1 million individuals annually. These effusions are a leading cause of debil...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-01-01
|
| Series: | Diagnostics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4418/15/2/204 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | <b>Background/Objectives</b>: Malignant pleural effusions (MPEs) pose a significant challenge in clinical practice and exert a considerable socio-economic burden on the healthcare system, affecting approximately 1 million individuals annually. These effusions are a leading cause of debilitating dyspnea and a diminished quality of life among cancer patients, with distant metastasis to the pleural layers occurring in about 20% of cases during treatment. <b>Methods</b>: A cross-sectional, observational case-control study was conducted on 151 Bulgarian patients with a hydrothorax. The control group included 72 patients with benign diseases, confirmed via biopsy, with 38 having inflammatory and 34 non-inflammatory pleural effusions. The other 79 patients had malignant pleural involvement. These groups are representative of the main types of pleural pathology. <b>Results</b>: The study found that all of the tumor markers, except for PIVKA-II (Protein induced by vitamin K absence-II), showed statistically significant differences between the malignant and non-malignant patient groups, with CAE (carcinoembryonic antigen) and CA19-9 showing the most notable differences. The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed that CA72-4 had the best ability to distinguish between the two groups, while PIVKA was the weakest, with optimal cut-off values for all of the relevant tumor markers being derived using the Youden index. <b>Conclusions</b>: In conclusion, our study highlights the transformative potential of pleural fluid tumor markers as precise and minimally invasive resources for distinguishing malignant from non-malignant pleural effusions. These findings pave the way for improved diagnostic accuracy and personalized clinical management, addressing a critical gap in the care of patients with pleural pathologies. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2075-4418 |