Diagnostic role of interleukin -33 in the differentiation of pleural effusions especially tuberculous and malignant effusions

Table 6 Cutoff value, sensitivity, specificity, the positive predictive value of serum and pleural IL-33 level in the prediction of tuberculous pleural effusion

Variable	Cutoff	Sens%	Spec%	PPV%	NPV%	Accuracy%	AUC	95%CI	P
Serum IL-33 in TPE	> 9.83–15.16	100%	57.1%	50%	100%	70%	0.607	0.43–0.78	0.29 (NS)
Pleural IL-33 in TPE	> 19.16	91.7%	96.4%	91.7%	96.4%	95%	0.973	0.92–1.0	< 0.001 (HS)
Combined		100%	96.4%	92.3%	100%	97.5%	0.982	0.94–1	< 0.001 (HS)

TPE Tuberculous pleural effusion, MPE malignant pleural effusion
This table shows that the cutoff value of pleural IL-33 level for the diagnosis of tuberculous pleural effusion is 19.16 ng/l. So IL-33 levels more than this threshold give a high probability of being tuberculous pleural effusion. The area under the corresponding ROC curve (AUC) was 0.973. The 95% confidence interval is 0.92–1, the corresponding sensitivity and specificity are 91.7 and 96.4% (P < 0.01). Pleural and serum IL-33 level combination increase the sensitivity to 100% and specificity to 96.4%

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