Causes

• Usually malignant when seen in the palliative care setting.

Interventions

• Analgesia
• Pleural drainage
• Pleurodesis

Notes

• Pleural drainage in children usually demands admission to hospital, sedation or anaesthesia.
• Following drainage malignant effusions usually reaccumulate within a few days or at most weeks.  Indwelling chest drain insertion may be appropriate in a small number of patients who gain significant symptomatic relief from drainage of pleural fluid on repeated occasions.
• Pleurodesis is painful in a significant minority of cases.
• Pleurodesis is unsuccessful in a significant minority of cases.