Causes of pleural effusion in long-term hemodialysis

Pleuropulmonary complications, such as pleural effusion (PE) are encountered with an increased frequency among patients with end stage renal disease. Subjects and In the cross-sectional and prospective study we evaluated 253 patients who had received long- term hemodialysis between 2007 September and 2008 October for better understanding the incidence and causes of PE in this population. The incidence of pleural effusion was 25 % (n= 63, mean age 48.09 ± 1.39 years, male to female ratio approximately 1.1). 66.6 % of the patients (n= 42) had transudative PE and 33.4% (n= 21) had exudative PE. Transudative PE resulted from heart failure in 64.3% (n= 27), hypervolemia in 33.3% (n= 14) and cirrhosis in 2.4% (n= 1). Parapneumonic effusion (n= 6), TB (n= 5), uremic pleurisy (n= 4), malignancy (n= 2), unknown (n= 2) and SLE (n= 1) accounted for causes of exudative PE. Pleural effusion is a common complication in hospitalized patients receiving long–tern hemodialysis. Since heart failure, hypervolemia and uremic pleurisy were the most common causes of pleural effusion, this problem should not be considered an obstacle in renal transplant recipients.