MEASUREMENT OF ACTIVITY OF ADENOSINE DEAMINASE IN PLEURAL FLUID FOR DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS OF TUBERCULOUS AND MALIGNANT PLEURAL EFFUSIONS / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Adenosine deaminase (ADA) activity in pleural fluid from 81 patients was measured by colorime-tric method. Of these cases, 55 cases were tuberculous pleural effusion, 22 cases were malignant pleura! effusion and 4 cases were transudate pleural effusion.The mean ADA, activity in pleural fluid of tuberculous group was 188.3?58.2u and that of malignant group was 52. 2?15. 4u. Statistically the difference is highly significant (p0.05). In tuberculous group, pleural fluid ADA levels higher than 110u were found in 53. cases (96.3%), and those above 120u were found in 52 cases (94.5%), while no case in malignat group had the ADA level higher than 90u, and in 20 cases it is lower than 70u (20/22 cases, 90.9%). These data suggest that pleural fluid ADA activity may be a useful index in the differential diagnosis of tuberculous and malignant pleural effusions.