The Significance of Pleural Effusion in Patients Past the Age of Fifty

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Abstract
IN RECENT years the differential diagnosis of pleural effusion has assumed great importance. Newer methods of cytologic examination have permitted more exact diagnosis.1 , 2 Little attention has been paid to the importance of age in the differential diagnosis, however; although some observers have studied groups of cases of pleural effusion from the standpoint of etiology, few have emphasized age factors.Tuberculosis has been implicated as the commonest cause of pleural effusion in all age groups.3 Similar views have been expressed by Ormond,4 whose cases were reported from a tuberculosis sanatorium. Skatvedt5 specifically studied patients over forty years of age; he concludes . . .