Analysis of pleural amylase levels in a chest disease clinic

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether pleural amylase levels in pleural fluid had a diagnostic value for discriminating the reasons of pleural effusions. totally 115 patients with pleural effusion were enrolled in this prospective study. pleural fluids and serum samples were obtained from all of the patients and analyzed for transudate or exudate classification and other biochemical analysis. amylase levels were measured in vitro by roche/hitachi cobas-c systems in biochemical laboratory. of the patients, 76 (66%) were male and 39 (34%) of them were female. the mean age was 62.2±15.3 and the range of age was between 20 and 94 years. of the pleural fluids, 26 (22.6%) were determined as transudate and 89 (77.4%) were as exudate. as a common reason of pleural effusions, 16 (61.5%) of the transudates were originated from heart failure and 29 (32.5%) of the exudates were originated from lung cancer. the ratio between the serum amylase level and pleural fluid amylase level was not different statistically in the aspect of all transudates and exudates caused by tumors or any other situations. seven (6.1%) of pleural effusions were amylase rich and 4 of them were tumoral origin, the other 3 of them caused by extratumoral causes. amylase rich pleural fluids were determined more frequently in malignant effusions than paramalignant effusions in the present study (p=0.028). as a conclusion, high pleural amylase levels are associated with a variety of benign and malign etiologies and the adenocarcinoma type of lung cancer is predominant reason.