2024 Volume 73 Issue 4 Pages 631-637
Pleural effusion CEA (hereinafter referred to as PF-CEA) is widely used to aid in the diagnosis of cancerous pleuritis, and pleural effusion cytology (hereinafter referred to as cytology) is widely used in the diagnosis of cancers. In this study, we examined the determination of 202 cases of malignant pleural effusions that were previously reported to be malignant by cytology and histopathological confirmation and diagnosed as cancerous pleuritis. We confirmed that re-examination improves grades. When redetermining cytology, we confirmed the accuracy of the PF-CEA test for cancerous pleuritis (cutoff value of 5.1 ng/mL, sensitivity of 70.8%, and specificity of 94.2%) in 192 cases at our hospital. After that, we considered the findings obtained by examining the PF-CEA results of the 202 cases of malignant pleural effusions by histopathological diagnosis. Among the 202 cases, five cases of malignant mesothelioma and six cases of malignant lymphoma were all negative in PF-CEA. Although many adenocarcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas were positive in PF-CEA, the positivity rate was low at approximately 27% in ovarian serous carcinomas. As a result of rediagnosing the cytology considering these factors, the number of cases diagnosed as adenocarcinomas, malignant mesothelioma, and malignant lymphoma increased, and the difficulty in differentiation was eliminated. The above showed that PF-CEA is useful for determining cytology.
