Indwelling pleural catheters for malignancy-associated pleural effusion: report on a single centre’s ten years of experience

Table 1 Baseline characteristics

Variable	n	%
Patients
Total	395	100.0
Male	130	32.9
Female	265	67.1
Age (years)^a	65	15–92
Malignancy
Ovarian cancer	121	30.6
Lung cancer	91	23.0
Breast cancer	45	11.4
GI neoplasia^b	31	7.8
Hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer^c	27	6.8
Hematologic neoplasia^d	22	5.6
Other gynaecologic neoplasia^e	15	3.8
Sarcoma	12	3.0
Head and neck cancer	6	1.5
Other^f	25	6.3
Catheters
Total	448
Laterality
Left	151	38.2
Right	194	49.1
Bilateral	50	12.7
Pleural Effusion
Malignant	346	77.2
Disease-associated, cytology negative	71	15.8
Cachexia/Hypoalbuminemia	35	7.8
Unknown aetiology	36	8.0
Paramalignant (Postobstructive)	26	5.8
Bronchi	18	4.0
Lymphoid vessels	1	0.2
Chylothorax	7	1.6
Treatment associated	5	1.1
Drug related (Dasatinib)	2	0.4
Surgery related	2	0.4
Radiofrequency ablation	1	0.2

^a Values are given as “median (range)”
^b Stomach cancer: n = 14, colorectal cancer: n = 8, oesophageal cancer: n = 7, anal cancer: n = 2
^c Hepatocellular cancer: n = 9, Klatskin cancer: n = 7, pancreatic cancer: n = 6, gallbladder cancer: n = 5
^d Lymphoma: n = 13 (7x B-NHL, 4x CLL, 2x T-NHL), multiple myeloma: n = 7, leukaemia: n = 2 (1x ALL, 1x AML)
^e Endometrial cancer: n = 6, cervical cancer: n = 6, vulvar cancer: n = 3
^f Melanoma: n = 7, renal cell cancer: n = 6, CUP: n = 4, prostate cancer: n = 4, thyroid cancer: n = 2, mesothelioma: n = 1, thymic cancer: n = 1

ISSN: 1471-2466