EFFECTIVENESS OF ETHANOLAMINE OLEATE AS A PLEURAL SCLEROSING AGENT INRABBITS

The ideal pleural sclerosing agent should be easily administered, with out significant side effects, inexpensive, and widely available, None of the agents presently used meets all of these criteria, Ethanolamine oleate (ETH) is a sclerosing agent used in the sclerotherapy treatmen t of varicose veins of the legs and esophagus, The objective of the pr esent study was to assess the efficacy of ETH as a pleural sclerosant in rabbits, An additional objective was to assess if better results we re obtained when dextrose 500% (D50) as opposed to saline was used as the diluent, Each group of 10 rabbits received a total volume of 2 ml intrapleurally, The eight treatments were as follows: (1) 2 mi saline; (2) 2 mi D50; (3) 25 mg ETH plus 1.5 ml saline; (4) 25 mg ETH plus 1. 5 mi D50; (5) 50 mg ETH plus 1.0 ml saline; (6) 50 mg ETH plus 1 mi D5 0; (7) 75 mg ETH plus 0.5 ml D50, and (8) 100 mg ETH, The rabbits were sacrificed 28 days after the injection, The intrapleural instillation of ETH resulted in evident pleurodesis, which was dose-dependent; 100 mg ETH induced significantly (p < 0.05) more adhesions than did any o ther treatment, The selection of the diluent had no effect on the pleu rodesis, The microscopic examination of the right visceral pleura show ed that the mean degree of fibrosis after 100 mg ETH was significantly (p < 0.05) greater than that after the other solutions, The mean degr ee of pleural inflammation, lung inflammation and lung fibrosis was mi nimal in all the groups, From this study we conclude that undiluted ET H produces pleurodesis in our experimental model, At the doses used, t he pleurodesis was less than that produced after talc, tetracycline de rivatives or silver nitrate in the same model.