ABSTRACT
This systematic review aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of thoracic ultrasound in malignant pleural effusion. Articles published until December 2019 in MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform were screened by two authors independently to extract data and evaluate the risks of bias and applicability using the modified Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 tool. We described the forest plots of each thoracic ultrasound finding. We estimated the pooled sensitivity and specificity of pleural nodularity using the bivariate random-effects model. We included seven articles and found that each thoracic ultrasound finding had low sensitivity. The pooled specificity of pleural nodularity was 96.9% (95% CI 93.2%-98.6%). In conclusion, thoracic ultrasound is not useful in ruling out malignant pleural effusion. Physicians can proceed rigorously to repeat thoracentesis or other invasive procedures when pleural nodularity is detected.
Subject(s)
Emergency Service, Hospital , Intensive Care Units , APACHE , Hospital Mortality , Hospitals, University , Humans , Netherlands , Probability , RegistriesABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: We evaluated 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake by renal cell carcinomas (RCCs) to determine whether different histological subtypes and Fuhrman grades can be distinguished. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the records and maximum standardised uptake value (SUVmax) of 147 patients with 154 RCCs who underwent FDG-positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) prior to tumour resection. RESULTS: The SUVmax was significantly lower in chromophobe RCC (chRCC) tumours than in clear cell RCC (ccRCC; p = 0.003) and papillary RCC (pRCC; p = 0.034) tumours. The mean tumour SUVmax was 4.58 ± 4.1 (range, 1.29-30.4) for ccRCC, 3.98 ± 1.9 (range, 0.49-6.72) for pRCC, and 1.93 ± 0.9 (range, 0.89-3.41) for chRCC. The SUVmax was not significantly different between the ccRCC and pRCC groups. In ccRCC and pRCC tumours, high-grade tumours had a significantly greater SUVmax (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05) than low-grade tumours by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Mann-Whitney U test. In ccRCC, multivariate regression analysis indicated that the SUVmax was a significant indicator of Fuhrman grade. No significant differences in uptake were observed between high- and low-grade chRCC tumours. CONCLUSIONS: The SUVmax obtained using FDG-PET/CT may be an important indicator for predicting tumour grade in ccRCC and pRCC. KEY POINTS: ⢠FDG accumulation reflects tumour aggressiveness and correlates with Fuhrman grade. ⢠FDG-PET/CT enables the differentiation of high- and low-grade ccRCC and pRCCs. ⢠FDG-PET/CT may valuable in the identification of some high-grade RCCs.
