A single institution experience for the management of recurrent pleural effusions with tunneled pleural catheter and its evolution.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Indwelling tunneled pleural catheters (TPCs) are increasingly being used to treat recurrent pleural effusions. There is also an increased interest in early pleurodesis in order to prevent infectious complications. We studied the time to removal and other outcomes for all the TPCs placed at our institution.

Methods

After institutional review board approval, records of patients who had had a TPC placed between July 2009 and June 2016 were reviewed; the catheters were placed in an endoscopy suite or during pleuroscopy with or without a sclerosant. The catheters were drained daily or less frequently and were removed after three drainages of less than 50 ml.

Results

During the study period 193 TPCs were placed. Of these 45 (23%) were placed for benign diseases.

SUBMITTER: Raman T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5933586 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature