Adverse events after pleurodesis in patients with malignant pleural effusion

BACKGROUND: Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is an important sign of advanced disease in metastatic cancer. Pleurodesis is one option to treat recurrent MPE. The Inflammatory response after pleurodesis may lead to important adverse events (AE) in a set of very ill patients. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of patients submitted to pleurodesis (2009–2013). Clinical and laboratory data were collected. We compare the values in the day of pleurodesis, 2(nd), 5(th) and 10(th) days after. RESULTS: One hundred fourteen patients were undergone to pleurodesis with silver nitrate (46%), iodine (52%) and talc (2%). Female was the most frequent (86%) and the breast cancer was the most common primary site. The most frequent adverse event was low hemoglobin account (37), followed by pain (31). 68% of patients presented AEs and 28% had at least one AE with grade 3 or higher. The most altered was CRP that peaked in the 5(th) day after pleurodesis. Changes in CRP curve were less severe with the use of iodine when compared with the other two agents. CONCLUSIONS: Pleurodesis leads to important systemic inflammatory response detected by different serum markers. The occurrence of adverse events in this set of patients was great number of events with being marked as grade 3 or higher.