Abstract
Pleural diseases are a frequent health problem and most clinical studies to date focused on generation of successful treatments for pleural diseases without considering patients' opinion for their symptomatic relief. Patients-related outcome measures (PROMs) should be objectively assessed and guide interventions. In our study we estimated PROMs after pleural interventions.
We prospectively collected data from 124 patients (12/2013-2/2015). Pleural interventions included diagnostic-therapeutic aspiration, medical thoracoscopy, intercostal chest drain (ICD) and indwelling pleural catheter (IPC) insertion. We gathered information for pain, dyspnea, expected improvement and willingness to repeat the procedure if needed by using a visual analogue scale (VAS).
The results showed that the most painful procedure was medical thoracoscopy (VAS: 20 ± 20.3mms) whereas diagnostic aspiration (VAS: 2.52 ± 4.78mms) was the less uncomfortable. Pain measurements were similar in ICD and IPC insertion groups. VAS for dyspnoea demonstrated that intercostal drain insertion had the greatest effect in patients' breathlessness compared to the other procedures (VAS difference pre and post-procedure: 50.8 ± 27mms). 99.8% of the patients would repeat any of the procedures.
Our study demonstrates the significant effect of pleural procedures in PROMs. Interventions ought to be patient oriented and our study will lead to the addition of PROMs in future clinical studies in pleural diseases.
- Copyright ©ERS 2015
