SIGNIFICANCE OF PLEURAL FLUID CHOLESTEROL AND BETA-2-MICROGLOBULIN LEVELS FOR THE DIFFERENTIATION OF PLEURAL EFFUSIONS IN CHILDHOOD

We studied 60 children, ages 3-15 years, with pleural effusions to det ermine the usefulness of different criteria for the separation of tran sudates from exudates. Twenty of these effusions were classified as tr ansudates and 40 as exudates, Pleural cholesterol (P chol), pleural/se rum cholesterol ratio (P/S chol), and pleural/serum beta(g) microglobu lin (P/S beta(2) m) were determined to characterize pleural effusions and were compared with Light's criteria (pleural/serum protein ratio, pleural LDH, pleural/serum LDH ratio), With a threshold of 0.3, the se nsitivity and specificity of P/S chol for diagnosis of exudates were 9 5 and 90%, respectively, With a threshold of 1.3, the sensitivity of P /S beta(2) m was 77.5%, and its specificity was 95%. Our findings indi cate that determination of P chol and P/S chol, as well as Light's cri teria, is of value for characterizing pleural effusions in childhood, but the measurement of P/S beta(2) m is less sensitive in distinguishi ng transudates from exudates and it should not be used routinely.