Comparison of needle biopsy with pleural fluid analysis for the evaluation of pleural lesions.

A total of 60 pleural biopsies were received at Nidaan Clinic, Kathmandu during the period of two years from January 2000 to December 2002. The age of the patient ranged from 8 years to 82 years. Male: female ratio seen was 3:1. The most common lesion was found to be chronic nonspecific; pleuritis seen in 50.0% cases followed by tuberculous pleuritis in 36.7% cases, metastatic adenocarcinoma in 8.3% cases, metastatic small cell carcinoma in 3.3% cases and anaplastic large cell carcinoma in 1.7% cases. 63.3% cases of chronic nonspecific pleuritis showed transudative pleural fluid effusion. None of the cases of tuberculous pleuritis had transudative pleural effusion. 2 cases (40.0%) of metastatic adenocarcinoma had transudative pleural fluid effusion which suggests the need to perform pleural biopsy in all the cases of transudative pleural effusion whether encountered for malignancy or not.

Histomorphologic pattern of skin lesions in Kathmandu Valley: a retrospective study.

A total of 85 skin biopsies were analyzed to see the pattern of skin disorders in Kathmandu Valley. Clinico-histopathological correlation was done to see for the inconsistency between clinical and histopathological diagnosis and also to analyse for the false positive diagnosis of melanoma in such lesions. The age of the patients ranged from 10 to 88 years. No gender predominance was observed. Five percent of the lesions were located on head and neck region and rest were distributed over chest, back and extremities. Clinically 21 (24.7%) out of 85 cases showed hyperpigmentation and were diagnosed as melanocytic lesions. Intradermal nevus emerged as the single largest disorder with a total of 11 cases (12.9%). Capillary hemangioma cases constituted the second largest group with a total of 9 cases (10.6%). Seborrhoeic Keratosis (8.2%), Verrucous vulgaris (8.2%) Neurofibroma (7.1%), Nonspecific granulomatous lesions (4.7%) and melanoma (3.5%) formed the other major groups of disorders. Morphea (1.2%), Psoriasis (1.2%) and fungal lesions (1.2%) commonly seen in other studies were not found to be common among the skin disorders in the present study.