Diagnostic significance of cytologic pattern of pleural and peritoneal effusions

This is a study of 100 pleural and peritoneal effusions aspirated from 96 patients. Several causes of effusion were found including exudative and transudative diseases. The three commonest causes of pleuro-peritoneal effusions were liver cirrhosis [28%], tuberculosis [27%], malignancy [25%] and other diseases [20%]. It was found that there is a certain cellular pattern of effusion in each disease. The cellular pattern was found to be of value for the clinician in the diagnosis of malignant and non-malignant effusions when these cellular changes are correlated with clinical and laboratory data