Is malignancy associated with pericardial effusion fluid volume or fluid character?

Introduction: Pericardial effusion develops due to different etiologies. The main goals of our study are to understand the etiology and determine whether the amount of pericardial effusion is significant in terms of malignancy.

Material And Methods: 142 patients with pericardial effusion, who met the criteria between 1 January 2014 and 1 January 2019, were retrospectively analyzed. All of these patients underwent operation with the subxiphoidal approach. The fluid samples were sent to the microbiology and pathology laboratories for evaluation. Patients underwent follow-up after 1 month.

Results: Of the patients included in this study, 72 (61%) of 118 patients were operated on under general anesthesia with a laryngeal mask, and 46 (39%) underwent sedation and local anesthesia. The etiologies found in patients were as follows: effusions resulting from malignancy in 27 (22.9%), idiopathic in 24 (20.3%), cardiac causes (depending on the use of anticoagulants or postoperation) in 22 (18.6%), uremia in 20 (16.9%), infection in 18 (15.3%), and heart failure in 7 patients. The amount of fluid drained from the patients was 661.61 ± 458.34 mL. Out of 27 patients with malignancy, 21 (77.8%) had drainage over 500 mL of effusion fluid, and 6 (22.2%) had drainage under 500 mL. Patients who had positive results tended to have drainage over 500 mL compared with patients who had negative results in terms of malignancy (P = .033).

Conclusion: The subxiphoidal approach to pericardial effusion is an easily applicable operation, whether therapeutic or diagnostic. The advantages of the subxiphoidal approach include drainage of all of the fluid and ease of sampling the pericardial fluid. We believe that the amount of fluid drained can lead us to consider malignancy as an etiology.