TY - JOUR T1 - Pleural-fluid myeloperoxidase in complicated and noncomplicated parapneumonic pleural effusions JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 320 LP - 325 DO - 10.1183/09031936.02.00051802 VL - 19 IS - 2 AU - J. Alegre AU - J. Jufresa AU - R. Segura AU - A. Ferrer AU - L. Armadans AU - C. Aleman AU - R. Marti AU - E. Ruiz AU - T. Fernández de Sevilla Y1 - 2002/02/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/19/2/320.abstract N2 - The diagnostic accuracy of myeloperoxidase (MPO) in pleural fluid, for differentiating between complicated and noncomplicated parapneumonic pleural effusions (PPE) evaluated prospectively. Seventy patients aged >18 yrs with PPE (36 complicated and 34 noncomplicated) were studied after admission to a tertiary referral teaching hospital. MPO concentration was measured in plasma and pleural fluid using a double-antibody competitive radioimmunoassay. The concentrations of MPO in complicated and noncomplicated PPE were compared using a Mann-Whitney U-test and multiple logistic regression models were used to predict the odds that an effusion was complicated. MPO pleural-fluid concentrations were significantly higher in complicated than in noncomplicated PPE. After excluding purulent effusions, pleural-fluid MPO was the marker that best differentiated between the two types of PPE: the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.912, the sensitivity was 87.5% and the specificity was 85.1% at a cut-point limit of 3.000 µg·L−1. The authors concluded that the concentration of pleural-fluid myeloperoxidase helps to differentiate between nonpurulent complicated and noncomplicated parapneumonic pleural effusions. This work was financed in part by a Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria grant (96/0977). ER -