Adenosine Deaminase in Pleural Effusion and Its Relationship with Clinical Parameters in Patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

Abstract

Pleural effusion adenosine deaminase (ADA) levels are elevated in various diseases. We investigated whether pleural effusion ADA levels differ among patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), lung cancer (LC), and benign diseases, including tuberculous pleurisy. We examined 329 patients from February 2002 to July 2013. There were 131 MPM cases with ADA levels of 32.29 IU/L; 117 LC cases with ADA levels of 21.12 IU/L; 54 benign disease cases with ADA levels of 20.98 IU/L. A significant difference existed in pleural effusion ADA levels between MPM and benign disease patients. Pleural effusion ADA levels were significantly higher in MPM patients.

Keywords:

• Adenosine deaminase
• malignant pleural mesothelioma
• pleural effusion
• tuberculous pleurisy
• thoracoscopy

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Taiichiro Otsuki, MD, PhD, from the Division of Respiratory Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Hyogo College of Medicine (Hyogo, Japan). Editorial support, in the form of medical writing, based on the authors’ detailed directions, collating author comments, copyediting, fact-checking, and referencing, was provided by Cactus Communications.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.