PILA PEREZ, Rafael; PILA PELAEZ, Rafael    HOLGUIN PRIETO, Víctor A. Bilateral pleural effusion in patients without heart failure. []. , 14, 2, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1025-0255.

Background: pleural effusion is a frequent disease in the clinic, to which should face not only the internist and the neumologist, but other specialists including general practitioners. Objective: to define this type of disease and its different causes. Method: fifty cases of bilateral pleural effusion in patients without heart failure diagnosis were presented, studied from 1996 to 2006, in the clinical wards at the University Hospital "Manuel Ascunce Domenech" of Camagüey. Results: the most frequent causes were neoplasias in twenty-eight patients, pulmonary thromboembolism in two patients, systemic lupus erythematosus and lymphomas in three opportunities. Except in four patients, the physicochemical study of the fluid corresponded with an exudate. In eight-sick persons a cardiothoracic index rise existed without evidence of heart decompensation, all them due to pericardial effusion. Conclusions: the absence of radiological cardiomegalia in a patient with bilateral pleural effusion is mainly a sign that guides toward other different causes of heart failure, above all neoplasias and pulmonary thromboembolism.

: pleural efusión [etiology]; Herat failure; pulmonary embolism; neoplasm; retrospective studies.

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